Boyne Berries 1916 Sold Out

Boyne Berries 1916 has now sold out. Thanks to everyone who purchased a copy. Details of how to submit to Boyne Berries 20 will be available soon.

Comments by Poet Tom French on Boyne Berries 1916

 

Tom French Pictured in The Irish Times 2014

 



As readers and writers we are all always in pursuit of, what Seamus Heaney famously called,“that moment of joy, of lift, of unexpected reward.” Weaving through the pages of this centenary Boyne Berries are anger, humour, reflection, spikiness, wistfulness, regret and raw emotion. We encounter the radical idea of dying at Easter and not rising; the notion – particularly poignant in the light of the recent publication of a new translation of Book VI of The Aeneid – of quarrels among the shades; we encounter the idea of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington as a hippie protesting against Vietnam; we meet the compassion of a person who attempts, with her hands, to put a man just parted from himself back together again in order to be whole enough to enter Eternity. And there are other beautiful things. In this centenary issue I was struck by many things. It has taken me until now, reading these pages, to discover, that the perfect collective noun for birds is ‘a sky’, and it will never now be anything else except ‘a sky of birds.’ This is, I believe, why we read, to encounter the tiniest phrase and to be struck by its rightness. Here too I read of ‘train light ghosting the bottom of a field’, of the ‘tenderness at the root of things,’ and of the deep difference between anointing and elation. As citizens we are being exhorted this year to remember, to reflect and to re-imagine. As a librarian I am delighted to welcome this centenary Boyne Berries and to commend its contributors. Not only does it remember, reflect and re-imagine, it is full of soul and song and unexpected reward.

 

Tom French, March 2016

Boyne Berries 1916 Launched

Tom French

 

It was a special night in Trim on Thursday as poet Tom French launched Boyne Berries 1916. Twenty four contributors read and attended on the night, while poet Deirdre Hines was present in the form of an MP3 recording of her poem The Letter Read as Pond. Mick McGann-Jones recited his poem Bullets and he also treated the audience to a piece called Mna na hEireann on his fiddle.

 

Thank you to everyone who came from near and far to make the night a success. For his decade of service as secretary of the Boyne Writers' Group Michael Farry was presented with a copy of an illustration by C. E Brock for Gulliver's Travels called 'Three Great Scholars'.

 

 

 

Pictures from the night can be found by clicking here courtesy of Frank Murphy's TheTaraPoetryBlog

 

Copies of the magazine can be purchased by clicking the paypal link to the right of this page. A limited number of copies of the magazine are still available.

 

The submission period for Boyne Berries 20 will open in June and details will be posted here then.

Boyne Berries 1916 Submission Details

'Freedom' Jack B. Yeats

 

The submission period for Boyne Berries 19, which will be a special issue commemorating the centenary of the 1916 Rising, will open on Sunday, 15th November 2015 and close on Sunday, 03rd January, 2016. The magazine will  be published in late March of 2016.

 

What does 1916 mean to you now? Can you picture life one hundred years ago? Is romantic Ireland dead and gone? What would those figures, those celebrated heroes of our past make of Ireland today if they could step out from the shadows? Is this a time to truly reflect? I don't want to put words in your mouth but I'd love to know what you think, what you feel, what you imagine...

 

I am keen to read work from writers in the Meath area but national and international submissions are also welcome.

 

Send up to 3 poems per poetry submission. Poems should be no more than 40 lines long. Fiction and prose submissions should be no more than 1500 words. Please use Times New Roman 12 and single spacing. Please include a short biographical note about yourself. Submissions should be placed in the body of the email and attached as a word document attachment. Submit to orla.a.fay@gmail.com only.

 

Submissions which fail to adhere to the above criteria will be ignored.

 

 



 





Boyne Berries 18 Launched

Boyne Berries 18 was officially launched on Thursday 24 September 2015 in the Castle Arch Hotel, Trim.

Copies can be purchased by using the PayPal button on the right.

Submission details for Boyne Berries 19, which will be published in March 2016 and will be a special 1916 commemoration issue, will appear here soon.

Boyne Berries - Submissions Open 6 June

The submission period for Boyne Berries 18 will open on Saturday, 6 June and close on Saturday 11 July 2015. Boyne Berries 18 will be published in September 2015.

Submit no more than three poems at a time.

Fiction should be 1500 words or less.

Please include your submission in the body of the email and as a single word document attachment and include a short bio.

Times New Roman 12 and single spacing are preferred.

Send your work via email to orla.a.fay@gmail.com with the subject line 'Boyne Berries 18 Submission Poetry/Prose' or via post to Orla Fay, Editor, Retaine, Dunderry, Navan, Co. Meath.

Boyne Berries 17 Launched

Boyne Berries 17 was launched last evening in the Castle Arch Hotel. A large crowd included contributors who had travelled from as far away as Galway and Cork to be present.

Boyne Writers chairperson, Caroline Carey Finn, welcomed everyone and introduced Adrienne Leavy (right) who launched the issue. Adrienne lived in Dundalk, County Louth, for the first twenty-five years of her life but immigrated to the United States and now lives in Arizona. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from Arizona State University frequently lectures on various aspects of Irish literature.

Adrienne thanked the group for inviting her to the launch and complimented the editor, Orla Fay, on the publication. She talked about how important small magazines have been and are to Irish writers. She mentioned how importance acceptance by Boyne Berries was to her writing. She thanked Boyne Writers Group for their work in establishing and continuing to publish the magazine.

Editor, Orla Fay, (left) then introduced each reader and we were treated to a feast of wonderful poetry and prose. As usual the variety of topic and treatment was impressive and the audience enjoyed all, the humorous and the sad, the wise and the witty.

One contributor, M.J. Iuppa who lives on a small farm on the shores of Lake Ontario, had sent a sound file with a greeting and a reading of her poem and this was played.

The evening ended with a presentation to Paddy Smith to mark his retirement from the chair of Boyne Writers after six years service.

Then tea, coffee biscuits and plenty of chat.