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First Quarterly Issue of Trasna Released
With poems and stories by Libby Hart, Stephen O’Connor, Mike Gallagher, S. C. Flynn, Marie O’Shea and Shane Leavy. Read Issue #1 here.
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Patrick Kavanagh: a Reader’s Experience
by Richard Hayes For generations of Irish readers—for this one certainly—the poetry of Patrick Kavanagh is inextricably associated with Soundings, the anthology of prescribed poetry for the Leaving Certificate English curriculum that was a staple of Irish secondary education from the end of the 1960s until the mid-1990s. Edited with sensitivity and skill by the late Augustine (“Gus”) Martin, then professor of English at University College Dublin, Soundings presented the poetry curriculum for the final exam with unashamed emphasis on the texts of the poems, without recourse to illustrations or photographs or that patronising commentary that seems to dominate textbooks now. Martin in his introduction to the book speaks of…
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Call for Submissions
For the past two years, Trasna has served as a weekly online platform introducing American readers to the latest writing from Ireland. We have featured work from established and emerging writers, through poetry, essays, and short fiction. In all there are over 80 independent posts that can be found at Trasna.online, as well as RichardHowe.com. This year, in addition to our weekly posts, we will be accepting submissions for an online, bi-monthly, literary magazine. Readers can subscribe to the magazine at Trasna.online. This week we are pleased to welcome submissions for the inaugural issue of Trasna. Writers in Ireland, of the Irish diaspora, or those for whom Ireland figures into their…
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about:blank by Adam Wyeth
about:blank by Adam Wyeth, is a piece of writing that both defies categorization and pays homage to the great literary innovators of the 20th and early-21st century.
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“On America” and Other Poems
Trasna is pleased to announce that poet Dan Murphy will join its team of editors. This week we feature four of his poems. Whether it’s a “rusty gate in a field of rock,” or “the cream cheese on your cheek,” Murphy explores the expansive to the intimate.
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Beannachtaí Trasna
In this first post on our new website we offer a blessing to all as we enter this new year of 2022. Here, Mawie Barrett, in her specially written Celtic Druid blessing weaves together connections from Ireland to Lowell and beyond.
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‘Only Connect’ – An Anthology of Poetry Written During the Pandemic
This week on Trasna we feature a new publication by Beir Bua Press, ‘Only Connect,’ an anthology of poetry and prose written during the pandemic and shared weekly with a group of writers on Zoom sessions led by Margaret O’Brien
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Daniel Wade reads from ‘A Land Without Wolves’
Daniel Wade, award-winning playwright, poet, essayist, and novelist, is making his second appearance in Trasna this week. Following his memorable tribute to poet Dermot Healy, last year, Dublin-born Wade has been actively pursuing his writing career and is now celebrating the release of his historical novel, A Land Without Wolves.
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“Reshaping the Light” by Breda Joyce
Autumn is the season that embraces reflection: thoughtful persons give thanks for their harvest even as they mourn the [human] losses that befell them during the time past. In the poems she reads for Trasna, works from her newly published collection Reshaping the Light.
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“Even the Heather Bled” by Joe McGowan
On the morning of Wednesday September 20th 1922 – the closing months of the Irish Civil War – soldiers of the Freestate army shot dead six anti-Treaty Volunteers atop Sligo’s Benbulben Mountain. How did it come about?
