FEATHERS RUFFLED - POETRY PUBLISHED BY LAPWING BELFAST 2017/2018

I am delighted to announce that after several self-published poetry collections and individual poems published here and there, my first proper book backed by a publisher, Lapwing Publications(Belfast), has just been produced.

The book is available to buy here - https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/joe-cushnan

Feathers Ruffled

by

Joe Cushnan

2017 Lapwing Publications

ISBN 978-1-910855-72-0

53 Pages

£10

In 1960, my father left our Belfast home, his wife and seven young children and vanished. The next we heard of him was when we were told he had died at 57 in Clapham, London. This collection of poems was borne out of my research into his 22 'missing' years. The poems concern him, my mother, my family, Belfast and me.

Contents: 

Larkin's Opener

Feathers

Anger

Unpicking

Loose-Limbed

Yellow

One-Seventy

Bingnian

Comfort Food

Handshake

Shoelaces

Engaged

Scab

Sweet And Holy

Bobble Hat

Belfast TV News

Missiles

Copper And Silver

Buses

Boom!

Where?

Who's Your Daddy?

Fags

Cloth-Cutter

Sausages Burning And Shaving Soap

Idol

Private Messaging

Not A Second Thought

Car Wash

Butter Face

Wallet

Bouquets

Last Known Address

Imagined Chat

Counting

The Wake

Orlando Road

Imagine That

Regrets

Minor Incident

Bingo!

Cold

Epilogue

On Friday 13 January 2018, I was interviewed by Michael Bradley on BBC Radio Ulster's Arts Show about the book and the story behind it. Here's the BBC iPlayer link but I don't know how long it will be active. I'm around 20 minutes in reading Shoelaces, Bobble Hat and Counting. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09l690d

The book has received warm responses from a variety of sources (not all family and friends!!) and I have further plans to promote it.

Like anything launched into the public domain, there are those who will like it, those who will dislike it and those who will ignore it. C'est la vie.

Lapwing Publications

c/o 1 Ballysillan Drive

Belfast

BT 14 8HQ

Northern Ireland

lapwing.poetry@ntlworld.com

http://www.lapwingpoetry.com

The book is available to buy here - https://sites.google.com/a/lapwingpublications.com/lapwing-store/joe-cushnan

Footnote:

In process is a memoir of my father - Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly? In Search of My Father: The Mystery of 22 Missing Years - my major project kindly fund-supported by The National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Feathers Ruffled is not part of this project, although some of the material is related.

Encouragingly though, a publisher in Dublin and one in Belfast have expressed positive interest in the story, with both asking to review more material. 

GOLDEN GLOBES

I stopped watching awards shows years ago initially because they started to become more elaborate and long-winded, and some of the cry-baby speeches just urged me to buy a bigger bucket.

The smaller shows like soap awards and their ilk are enough to liquify the cerebral cortex, but then I'm not a soap fan, so how could I possibly know how great and gifted the nominees and winners are. I am not desperate to find out.

The premium accolade shows are, of course, the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes, with the Globes often seen as the warm-up act for the Oscars. I used to be giddy with excitement about film and television awards but in recent years they have become platforms for protests and campaigns about race, gender, sexual abuse and so on, all legitimate subjects to highlight. To highlight, yes, but not to dominate the show.

I have no idea who won what last night but my usual skim of news headlines shows that 'the story' is about protest above performance.

What should be a joyous celebration of artistic creativity appears to have been shrouded under an umbrella of protest, denying winners their pure moments of happiness. How can any winner be excited to whoop and holler and do cartwheels in a show that has the feel of a wake. (Again, I didn't watch it but that's my impression from brief glimpses of news  bulletins. I am ready to be corrected.)

There are those who have every right and reason to use a Hollywood back-slapping ceremony to give it an ass-kicking, but I think there must be a better way to make protestations without demoting celebrations.

The Golden Globes will be the warm-up act for the Academy Awards, another opportunity, no doubt, for talent to take second place to 'issues' in the headlines. Another awards show for me to avoid.

CHAT SHOW

This year, I would like to try something different on my blog.

The Pivot Questionnaire comprises 10 questions. I have seen it used on the television show Inside The Actor's Studio, presented by James Lipton.  Apparently Proust was the original inspiration

The modern questions originated on a French TV show called Bouillon de Culture, hosted by Bernard Pivot.

As the Old Year reaches its end and a New Year prepares to dawn, the questions are worthy of reflection, I think. Every time I do this exercise, my answers are almost always different!

Here are my answers. Let me know yours, if you would like to share. Use the comments box below.

Happy New Year one and all

I have expanded the questions to 12.

1. What is your favourite word? - Nonchalant
2. What is your least favourite word? - Atrocity
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? - Memories
4. What turns you off? - Hatred
5. What is your favourite song? Baker Street
6. What is your favourite film? The Searchers
7. What is your favourite curse word? - Shit
8. What sound or noise do you love? - Acoustic guitar played perfectly
9. What sound or noise do you hate? - The news
10. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? - Radio broadcaster
11. What profession would you not like to do? - Surgeon
12. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? - Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Here's what I would like to do. I would like a couple of sentences about you and anything you would like to promote/draw attention to, links or whatever, the answers to the questions and your permission to share them on my blog to various online sites.

Please cut and paste answers in the comments below or directly by email to joecushnan@aol.com

Declining the invitation is not the end of our friendship......

Answers:

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FOR FEATURES EDITORS – JANUARY 2018 FREELANCE FEATURES BULLETIN

Hello and Happy New Year.

Here are some ideas for January features. Some of them may be in your diary already. Some of them may be added to your diary after reading this. Some features may be written by in-house journalists. But maybe, just maybe, I can write something for you.

Let me know what you want, word count, deadline and fee and I will get to work. (A summary of my published work appears below.)

Here's the January list and, if I can help, I look forward to hearing from you. joecushnan@aol.com

JANUARY

1 - 70 years ago, UK rail network became British Railways

1 - 200 years ago, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was first published

5 – 85 years ago work started on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge

5 – 50 years ago BBC TV’s Gardener’s World, with Percy Thrower, first aired

5 – 70- years ago, BBC radio soap Mrs Dale’s Diary’s first episode was broadcast

8 – 50 years ago Prime Minister Harold Wilson endorsed the “I’m Backing Britain” campaign

9 – 250 years ago, Philip Astley staged the first circus in London

9 – Comedian Freddie Star will be 75

14 – 40 years ago punk band The Sex Pistols broke up

18 – Botanist David Bellamy will be 85

18 – 240 years ago, Captain Cook was the first European to discover Hawaii

23 – 75 years ago, Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart released in the USA

28 – 100 years ago Sooty creator Harry Corbett was born (d. 1989)

28 – 60 years ago the last episode of The Goon Show was broadcast on BBC radio

JOE CUSHNAN

Books: Belfast Backlash; Shops, Shoppers, Shopping & Shafted; Before Amnesia: Seeds Of A Memoir; Shaking Hands; Retail Confidential; Much Calamity & The Redundance Kid; Stephen Boyd: From Belfast To Hollywood; Hamish Sheaney: The Nearly-Man Of Irish Literature; Juggling Jelly; Geek!; A Belfast Kid; Jack Elam, I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life; The Chuckle Files; The Poems Of Hamish Sheaney: Remastered & Expanded; Only Yules & Verses; Only Drools & Corsets; Fun With Words, Fun With Rhyme; Fun With Words, Fun With Noise

Published features, reviews and poetry include – Lapwing Publications (2017 Poetry book – Feathers Ruffled), Fairlight Books (2017 Short Story – Twist), BBC Radio Ulster "The John Toal Show", Wells Festival/Poetry 2016 (Shortlist), The Galway Review, Scarlet Leaf Review, Derwent Poetry Festival 2015, 2015 Templar Poetry Anthology “Mill”, Octavius Magazine, Ireland’s Big Issue, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Belfast Telegraph, 2013 Belfast Book Festival, Irish News, BBC TV NI “Stephen Boyd: The Man Who Never Was”, BBC Radio Sheffield “Rony Robinson”, BBC Radio Ulster “Saturday Magazine”, BBC Radio 4 “You & Yours”, The Guardian, Tribune, NZ Management, The Grocer, Retail Week, Edge, Open Eye, Yorkshire Post, The Catholic Herald, Cambridge Evening News, The London Paper, Southern Cross, NZ Freelance, Writer’s News, Belfast News Letter, Irelands Own, Fortnight, The Dalhousie Review; Blithe Spirit; The Cannon’s Mouth, Poetry Monthly, Poetic Comment, Bard, Current Accounts, Candelabrum, Decanto, Inclement, Haiku Scotland, Time Haiku, etc. 

NO NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

Well, here we are on day two of 2018. So far, so good.

I don't make resolutions. I used to pretend to make them but I never had any real intentions of committing myself to anything specific.

On a gloomy note, wishing for world peace and international harmony is pointless. We all know that to be true. But, please, pray away.

I tend to keep my little life adjustment plans to myself. They are no one else's business. Once you share resolutions or anything that resembles resolutions, you open a door and people feel entitled to chip in with advice and opinions that, frankly, I don't need.

January is the month of lifestyle and diet gurus urging us not to eat or drink a long list of things and, occasionally, one of these hippyish bletherers will come up with a new discovery to help us live longer, illness and wrinkle-free - Madagascan Gink or Samoan Gunge or Undiscovered Tribal Magic Mucus or Divine Amazonian Sweat-Gland Excretion Lotion. Some of these experts will hold qualifications in their fields and others will be bandwagon snake-oil sellers. Feel free to be taken in.

And don't get me started on the celebrity DVDs about fitness and health. And the campaigns to get people to join gyms and buy expensive running and stretching contraptions.

Spend your money wisely!

I tend to carry on pretty much as normal with a few tweaks here and there.

Creatively, I want to be a better writer, I want to dig deep and learn how to write great and memorable poetry and finish a couple of other projects simmering away on various parts of my QWERTY hob.

The most important writing project about my father and family - Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly? - kindly support-funded by The National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland is in an important development stage and I will be devoting the lion's share of my writing time to completing the story.

Anyone making New Year resolutions, good luck with them.