Irish Poet

[ellenkushner]

Our friend Micheal O’Siadhail is reading at NYU on Thursday (that's tonight) at 7 pm. It's worth your time - he is one who makes his poems come brilliantly alive when he reads them. We first met him in Boston at the home of the O'Donovans (Brian does a stellar Celtic music program on WGBH, which you can also listen to online) - there was a big dinner, which I think Delia & I had been invited to because we were Literary types who might mix well with the visiting poet - and at the end of it, Brian asked Micheal (sic; pronounced MEE-haall, to my ear, anyway - last name, o'SHEEL] to "give us something." And after a bit of polite demurral, Micheal did. He opened a book (Hail! Madam Jazz, I think), and lifted his leonine head, and recited his poetry. It was just like you always thought it would be: bardic, modern, classical, moving - to hear an artist at the top of his craft offering it to friends old and new after a meal full of good food, good wine and conversation. I've been a huge fan ever since.

(If Mr. O'Siadhail's name is familiar but you can't quite place it, he's also a linguist & the author of 2 standard academic textbooks, Learning Irish and Modern Irish.)

He'll also be at the Concord (MA.) Public Library on Friday, March 7th. And there's a video I haven't watched, of him reading at Columbia U. a few years ago, here.

Comments

[rosefox]

I love Learning Irish! Don't remember a word of Gaelic, lo these many years later, but his book was great to work from when I was studying it.

And I don't have any plans for tonight. Hmmm.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

That would be lovely!

[medievalist.livejournal.com]

He's not only a fine poet, he's a fine Celticist and scholar.

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Learning Irish was the textbook our teacher used when I studied Irish back in the 80s. Is leabhair maith é! (Ach níl na feoirmeoirí Chonamara sásta.)