SHOp 37 (Autumn/winter 2011)
This issue has an additional page inserted (except in copies sold through bookshops). It carries a poem by Michael D Higgins, published now, in this way, to celebrate his election as President of Ireland.
The issue proper begins with three poems in Irish. The first, by Louis de Paor, has a translation by him. Two poems by Liam Ó Muirthile have translations by Gabriel Rosenstock.
Other contributors to the issue include Gary Allen, Denise Blake, Tom French, Richard Halperin, Robert Nye, Knute Skinner, and Damian Smyth among many others, some previously unpublished.
The cover illustration, 'Shark and Window,' is by Diarmuid Delargy.
Frank Dullaghan, who contributed 'Dundalk' to the issue, is an Irish poet currently living and working in Dubai:
FRANK DULLAGHAN Dundalk
This is the town that I left, its high-
ceilinged classrooms, the smell and weight
of a new year's school books,
the De La Salle brothers with their canes
beating learning into working class boys,
the wrought-iron gate to the train station,
a portal to elsewhere, the churches dark
with silences, that one hip northern priest with
his good looks, who came to the house
when my pregnant sister got married,
for the small after-meal my mother put out,
who refused to acknowledge the figure of shame
that padded about and sat between us
but belted out his voice in song to celebrate
the union, the coming child, and filled us
with the extraordinary knowledge
of ordinary things. This is the town where
my brother came home once, broken
and bloody, where I first cupped the marvel
of a girl's breast, earned money, drank.
This is the town where I dreamed
of the possible in its many coats, though
never once dreamed myself dressed and away
from the accents and small certainties
of that parish. It is the town where my mother
finally let go of herself, where my brother's
heart gave out, where my father died slowly,
becoming more insubstantial with each sin
he acknowledged in himself. This is the town
that I left, a town where my sisters still live,
anchoring it to its past, as it grows a bright
new plumage and tries to fly away from me.