Safe, staid Listowel. For the craic.

from agnes at the bar in the listowel arms;

"The writer's greatest asset is his indignation"

John B. wrote that observation a long time ago, in a different century. In JB's early works from almost 50 years ago, there certainly was indignation. His voice uttered the hitherto almost unutterable, his voice showed an Ireland that no-one really wanted to be talked about. At least not publicly. John B., revered now, did receive some shall we say, negative waves, during his lifetime, but sure that's all forgotten now.

There is now a wonderful festival in honour of the legacy of Listowel writers, including John B. It really does what is says on the tin - it's a week for writers in Listowel. I quote from the official website "Writers' Week festival was established in 1970 to celebrate those writers and to provide an opportunity for Irish Writers in general to develop their talents and meet new audiences".

The key words here are 'meet new audiences'. I will return to that, but in the meantime.

Premier Writing Festival?

It seems from the above official twitter profiles (15th June 2010) that there are two Premier Literary events in Ireland. What makes Listowel different? The Kerry Group Award for Irish Fiction? John Banville won it this year - a wonderful, erudite, pleasing writer, full of classical references. Where is the 'indignation'? Look at the past winners (I challenge you to find out who ALL the past winners were - don't try the official website) and you will find a list of safe, but wonderful, writers. I do not deny the worthiness of the winners - how could I? Have they not won prizes for their works from many sources?

Does LWW draw fame and credibility to itself by choosing known, proven winners, or at least safe winners? What differentiates it from any other literary festival in the world?

Is it the 'craic' and John B's ghost? Where is the heart of JB, or indeed of any Listowel writer, in 'Infinities' ?

Would the man who wrote 'Many young men of twenty' be 'safe' ? Listowel owes it to itself to look at it's raison d'etre, to quote an old kerryism. The festival deserves to flourish, not wither on the vine.

Meet New Audiences

This is perhaps another challenge which LWW could, should and must take up. The incident with Paul O'Mahony and a committee member (see this and this ) shows up the interface between the old and the new. Surely the best way to 'meet new audiences' is to fully embrace the net and all it's tools. It's not only LWW which falls down here, but that only creates a gap, an opportunity for LWW to leapfrog other festivals.

Some examples for you. 

The official LWW twitter profile (see above) shows 10 tweets! 10!

-Don't bother with the LWW facebook page.

-Blog, - what LWW blog? None. (though there is excellent Fringe blog).

-The web-site should give more - a lot more. As mentioned above, there is no list of past winners. What about links to writers, editors, publishers? Some video links? Excerpts/full reprints of poems/stories? The web-site is not just a brochure - it is the LWW primary window to the world, to which all else connects.

-On-line discussions, Q/A sessions?

-Facilitate press - both official and citizen

-Accomodate 'fringe' events/matters

None of this costs a lot of money, but the impact world-wide for LWW could be immense.

The audience could be enormous, both for the LWW and the writers.

Unless LWW wants to be known as a parochial, provincial literary festival with a bit of craic, it must change.

I come to praise Caesar, not bury him.

Mozart a Disgrace in Listowel? Maybe

from agnes in the bar at the meadowlands;

You may or may not know of the story of Paul O'Mahony who was accosted and challenged by a Listowel Writers' Week (LWW) committee member for recording an event at the festival. "You're a disgrace", she said. It is not entirely clear what her problem was, but it seems that she thinks recording an event at the festival without permission is a 'disgrace'. I wonder.

Mozart is not generally considered to be a disgrace, but he did not have to contend with the LWW committee. Way back when, Allegri's Miserere was performed regularly in the Sistine Chapel, a public place you would no doubt agree. However, the Vatican thought that this Miserere so special that no written copies of the music were allowed. Young Mozart (fourteen years of age) was unfortunate in that he did not possess an iPhone, so he was unable to copy the piece and blog it, YouTube it, Podcast it - nothing. But he did have a prodigious memory - he memorised the entire piece and wrote it down after the performance - outside the chapel, of course. Disgraceful behaviour. And yet, copies were made of Mozart's notation, and bootlegs, mostly pretty bad versions, went out to the great unwashed.

Which brings me to copyright. And I have no intention of discussing that here. Someone will just rob my post without seeing this part.

Which brings me to the LWW ladies problem with recording. I would venture that she has learnt, or just picked up on, the fact the the music industry hates copying - copying by anyone other than themselves of course. Copying has been a huge bogeyman since the cassette tape was invented. How many people were introduced to obscure, non-mainstream music through cassettes ? And went on to spend a lot of money on LPs, CDs, MP3s - all legal?

Most of the events at Listowel are readings, poetry recitals, sundry live performances. The vast majority of the people involved are not millionaire writers. All of them, I am pretty sure, are more than appreciative of a world wide audience via the web - YouTube, the Fringe Web and for God's sake even the official LWW website! (I am doing a separate post on that matter).

If nothing else, it is surely the duty of a Writers' Week to spread the WORD. To inspire others to read, write and above all to buy the arists' work and support their endeavours.

By using and facilitating tweeters/bloggers/photo-journalists LWW would open itself to the entire world. The LWW committee might be wonderfully amazed at the amount of people out there in the big, bad world who really want to know more about LWW. The amount of people who are willing to take the time to trawl the web for news, videos, readings and photos is vast, absolutely vast. If I was a poet I would love my readings to be heard and available everywhere. I would hope such publicity would be converted into sales, obviously. One cannot eat poetry.

Maybe, at the end of the day, a handshake, even a Virtual Web Handshake would allow the LWW and bloggers/tweeters/citizen journalists get along and promote the LWW itself.

The simple solution is for permission of the artist, not the committee, to be sought with full credit to all artists/readers/performers given and posted.

"Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot"

Mozart pic care of http://todopera.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/

Sentimentality doesn't win at Listowel

from loki in the half-way bar listowel.

This being an unusually hot day I sit in the shade of the Half-Way bar, half-way(ish) between Listowel and Tralee. This being Listowel Writers' Week I sit a few kilometres from the festival where the winner of the Irish Fiction Award will be announced. I've been dreading this moment. Not 'Let the Great World Spin' (LTGWS) please, although I note that the prize is not called the 'Best Irish Fiction'.

First of all I must state that I own a signed (by the author, not by me) first edition of the book, and that no-one will borrow it - or any of my books come to that. So at least I show one of my failings.

The entire LTGWS is shot through with sentimental writing - a pair of Irish brothers whose father leaves the family home at an early stage, the poor mother dying of cancer, the girl with a concience, the prositutes with a heart of gold, the jewish judge and his wife who mourns her son lost to war and on and on and on. There is also the unnamed tightrope walker tip-toeing between the great World Trade Towers back in the 1970's.

Enough already, as Colum would write.

It is always a bit pernickity to find fault in a book because of historical details, but if the author wishes to establish some credibility then surely a bit of accuracy is called for. Within the first few pages of the book we are informed that the boys grew up in Sandymount on Dublin Bay in the mid-1950's. On weekend mornings the brothers walked with their mother on the beach where "Two enormous red and white power station chimneys broke the horizon to the east" (p12). I am a child of fifties Dublin and I thought those chimneys were not built until the early 1970's. I checked, I'm right. If I'm wrong tell me, I'll delete the post.

But that does not damn a book.

Every so often Colum (should I now start writing Mr. McCann?) can't resist relieving himself of some witticism;  a "hospital that looked like it need a hospital", "Miro, Miro on the wall". At other times Mr. McCann employs sledgehammer, if not a pneumatic drill, to ram home some point he wishes to make. Just one example of this is where he takes three-quarters of a page to descibe death by many means - death by this, death by that. Or, as he himself sums up the list " A stupid, endless menu of death". Quite. I was reminded (unfavourably) of Martin Amis and his page of 'fuck' in 'Success' (1978).

Ulitimately I found the book to be full of sentimentality, and Irish sentimentality at that. The device of the tight-rope walker and the Twin Towers is very flimsy. There is the air of a movie script about the whole thing.

Enough already.