To the Enright House
Martin Enright, Irish Agent
Dromlought, Lisselton
County Kerry, Ireland
Sirs:
Enclosed are several poems for consideration in your
publication of Irish-American poetry:
Like
So Many Board Feet
In
Mary Bianchi's Garden
Lighting
the Electric Fire
Condemned
Flesh
Chickory
II
Comida
del Muerte
Dispelling
Darkness
Manna
However, I find the 25-line framework a bit limiting—so
what I’m sending is not necessarily indicative of my larger body of work. I am interested in where you got
my name for your publication venture, because once I wanted to do a poetry
exchange with Ireland, but was unable to find funding for it. But my contacts
did put me in touch with Seamus Heaney (whom I've met several times), I've also
met Paul Muldoon—he was staying in Berleley, CA for a while.. Are you familiar
with the work of a San Francisco
Latino poet, Francisco Alarcon? He
just returned from a reading tour of Ireland; his poetry was translated
into Irish. New Rivers Press of Minneapolis, Minn., is also doing an
Irish-American anthology. You may want to contact them.
I am interested in finding out more information on your
book-length manuscript competition. I will be in Holland until the end of
October. You may reach me at R. Hogerbeetsstraat 97 -III, 1052 VV Amsterdam;
otherwise, please send information to the above address after October 25.
Sincerely yours,
Maureen Hurley
P.S. Most of my Irish connections (Walsh & Sullivan)
are from the West—in Kerry (Tralee), Cork (Bantry)— and some in Dublin ( Reilly
& Duffy), Fighoragh (sic) & Longkesh. My father’s side of the family
left Ireland during the late 19th c.; my maternal grandparents left in 1910 -
1919. As far as I can deduce I’m 100% (Black) Irish by all four bedposts(there
was talk of the invasionof the
Spanish Armada in Bantry). I was raised by my maternal Corkonian grandmother,
and so learned history/culture
according to the Irish
alongside the Anglo-Saxon (American)versions of history. Her Irish
sensibilities certainly are a prima source in my writing.
BIO
Maureen Hurley lives near the Russian River, where she is
California Poets in the Schools Area Coordinator for Sonoma and Napa Counties
in California. She's recipient of several artist in residency awards from
national, state, local, and private agencies including seven California Arts
Council grants. She has led workshops in public schools, a mental institution,
and universities in California, the Bahamas, and in the USSR. She is director
of Poetry Across Frontiers, a program that exchanges student poetry and art with
sister city, Cherkassy, in the Ukraine. Hurley is a visual artist and
photo-journalist as well as a poet. Her poems and photographs have appeared in Apostrofe!, ROTOR, Phantom Cherkassy Krai (Ukraine); The Louisville
Review, Shaman’s Drum, Sing Heavenly Muse, Looking for Home, Chaminade Literary
Review, Caribbean Writer, Gulf Stream, Poetry SF, First Leaves, Napa Poetry
Review, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Poetry Flash, California Quarterly
(CQ), Blue Window. Electrum, Sculpture Gardens Review, American Poetry Review,
Mexico City News, & Oakland Museum Magazine. Her poetry has been translated and
published in Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian. She has work forthcoming in Tin
Ear and Maverick. Student poetry and art
anthologies produced and edited by Maureen Hurley include: Poem for a
Russian Child, The Gift of Dreams, A Night Full of Doves, The Power of the
Reckless Sleeper, Still Writing on Rocks, Someone Inside Me, The Poem is the
Person's Life, and Seeds Deep in the Earth.
when?
filed 9/12/03
