Full house enjoyed Woodbine Open Mic Night

Only that Dawn had made sure there was an over-abundance of chairs, it would have been standing room only at last evening's Open Mic Night in Woodbine Books, writes Brian Byrne.

The event was a marker for National Book Week, and a range of performers treated the full house to an eclectic mix of prose, poetry, and music.

Jo Doyle (top) kicked off the evening with her piece The Farmer's Wife, opening with word-pictures of "a man who labours all the hours and dreams of a good harvest, a prize bull, a great yield of hay ... and then a smile full of joy, shining, glowing ... look what I did this year." She segued to how much of what had been done was due to the unacknowledged work of the woman behind him, not least in "cooking dinner, babysitting grandchildren, doing the washing and and mopping the floor, welcoming the helpers, listening to all their worries, wishing them well in their work." And so much more, including essential management duties on the farm, yet "acknowledged rarely in their own house, never in their villages and absolutely never by their government ... it is an old vocation, part of the marriage vows, the unsaid joint account of work." 

After the strongly presented tribute to a cohort under an unfairness that, hopefully is of a passing generation, next up was Vera (we didn't get her second name). Her contribution was short, but every word of her poem had impact as she brought to the evening the crushing issue for someone suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, preoccupation with a perceived flaw in one's physical appearance. "I ... finally find the time to say, I'm happy being me. Then the waves come crashing down, salt scrubbing down my skin, I realise what is real, and it wipes away my grin." Appreciative applause may also have reflected recognitions of something which 'influencers' of our time have much to be accountable for.

Then a lighter interlude from Orla Ní Sheaghaidh, inspired after a summer of cat-sitting with her partner Kevin to give a cat's mind view of the human 'slaves' "at my beck and call at all times." There's the 'fair one', "her fur is strange, all on her head, curly and untamed." The 'dark-haired one', "he takes better care of his appearance, but he is far too disobedient for my liking. I need to supervise them constantly. The best vantage point is from the kitchen counter, but the male slave is forever chasing me off it."

David Murray, a stalwart of the Kilcullen Writers Group, provided an extract from his current work in progress, a fantasy novel set in a land of small people. He described a craft shop run by three smiths, the elder being Telos, who "stood at four feet tall, a stocky build yet muscular, long dark brown hair that reached all the way down to his chest. Standing behind his anvil with a hammer in hand, this was the one place ... he felt most home."

Julie O'Donoghue, as she put it herself, had 'the absolute cheek' to change the end of Pride And Prejudice. "I never liked Mr Darcy, anyway." She brought us through her own take on Lizzie's final pre-nuptial conversation with the man to whom she is presumed to marry. "Your lack of civility to those whom you consider to be far below your own station, would be insupportful to me. Furthermore, you who are the fortunate inheritor of fast wealth, never acknowledged by word or deed the source of this great fortune. That is, the labor and suffering of men, women, and children, who toil ceaselessly on your plantations in the far off Indies. No, Mr Darcy, it is done."

Celia Murphy transported us from the dissing of Darcy to the magic of the Italian coast, bringing Mediterranean warmth to Kilcullen's late autumn chill in snippets from her poem, Amalfi, "houses cascade down the side of cliffs, with sandy coves ... weddings at the Church of Sancta Maria ... lemons growing in little gardens ... Italy is calling." 

Indeed it was, and then we were brought abruptly back to Ireland as Pat Smullan read from his just-launched Tales From Derry, Kildare, and Beyond. His The Next Word was a deeply moving account of family loss and its effect on those behind. "She counts back the weeks, the days. It must be three weeks now since he spoke to her. Three weeks since she heard his voice. Three weeks with him reaching for the corkscrew at 5 o'clock every day. Seven long weeks since they stood side by side in the front room as the undertaker gently placed the lid on the coffin. Seven weeks since they stood at the graveside, hand in hand, each dropping a lily on the coffin ..."

Mary Orford's contribution was a timely reminder of the time of the year when we remember those who have gone before. She detailed the suffering of a volunteer nurse in war, who knew that she herself had contracted typhoid. "From her training, she was more than aware of the symptoms. She was thin, and emaciated, her belly swollen and painful. The shivers told a story of fever ... even the cotton sheet couldn't cool her typhoid, the dreaded disease." In that fever, memories. Of other soft Irish voices, of walking barefoot on the dewy morning grass at her family's home farm. Then, Mary's own voice momentarily struggling, "on the 3rd of September 1917, Irish Red Cross voluntary aid detachment Eleanor Orford, from Foxhill, Athy, died at the First Western Military Hospital, Fazakerley, Liverpool."

Daniel Nolan's story, Relative Motion, mused about the people beyond a travelling train. "These are lives and stories and people that passes by, like leaves carried by an autumn wind." But eyes meet in the carriage, "our hands touch and you look up to meet my eyes, dimples curving your cheeks and you smile with affection and promise. We likely look like fools to those round us." And then? Well, you missed the story ...

Alba Flores has a smile that lit up the room as she recounted adventures in the English language through her accent. "Like the day I said to a client, don't forget to bring your ID. Your passport, or your ... off-licence. Or when somebody was yelling at me over the phone, I said, please sir, don't shoot."

Understanding words spoken was also involved in Geraldine Gahan's piece, recalling her father taking his children in their blankets into the garden on a clear night, teaching them about stars and constellations, "Telling us their names, and then he would ask us to identify them. But he had been deafened by a torpedo attack on his ship in the first World War, and needed a torch so that he could lip-read our replies."

After Geraldine's piece, which included regret for the amount of light pollution that now makes such stargazing more difficult, it was the turn of Joseph O'Loughlin to bring the assembly a fusillade of one-liners about Naas. "Now that they've finished the roadworks, the new name for the junction is the Spaghetti-Ball-in-Naas." ... "Why don't hitch-hikers get lifts there — because they say they're going to Kill."

Things became serious again with Anne Coakley's poem Evacuate Now contrasting the peace of the birds in her garden with conditions in the Middle East from where they might have flown. "All you people in villages, along the hills, the coast, we are moving in. Evacuate now" ... "Dust rising would take off, heading east, heading south, unknown destination" ... "The peacemakers on standby, muted, no safe zone left, still the starlings come back from summer in Europe's secret places, finding their winter home in the eaves."

Maria McDonald read from her historical fiction book The Devil's Own, a piece reflecting the attitude in a parish to a woman's response to domestic abuse, "She held a carving knife in front of her, blade side down, with blood dripping from it onto my mother's polished linoleum floor. My mother screamed and dropped the cup she had been drying."

Music for the evening, which by agreement of all present was another triumph for the Woodbine Books venue, was provided by Oisin Finlay (above) and David Scott. 

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