Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2026
Begin Again, guest editorial by Brian Kirk.
It’s natural at the beginning of the year to feel low. The hoopla surrounding the celebration of new year encourages us to look to the future with renewed optimism, but it isn’t always easy. We have weathered the privations of winter, sated our appetites during the holiday festivities, and now it’s time to gaze outward again at a world that we hope will be brighter and offer some sort of renewal. From the beginning of time, in all cultures, our lives have been tied to the passage of time, to the changing of the seasons. Even now, in the post-digital age, with the uncertainty that AI threatens for artists and creatives, in a time of dramatic climate change, a time of war and hostility, we still align our lives with the rotation of the earth around our sun. Regardless of race or faith we have an innate need to feel a part of the natural order of things, to experience up close these cycles of birth, death and regeneration.
Some winters are longer and harder than others. This year in Ireland, the weather has been depressing, raining almost every day during January and February. That, coupled with the shorter hours of daylight, narrows the small window of opportunity to be out in the world interacting with others and nature. The absence of this tangible engagement with other people and the natural world works to erode us as humans. We become silent, distant, unsure of ourselves in a world that appears alien to us. We retreat into worlds that are not authentic, not reflective of life as it has been and should be lived. We have our private cares also. Maybe a loved one is sick, or a friend has passed on, or a job is in jeopardy. All this adds to our withdrawal from the world. And this year the world has become less enticing. War is waged for no reason, and the lives of the innocent are counted as nothing, truth and lies are two sides of the same coin for many who hold power. Where does that leave us? What can we do? What is the point of it all?
Every new year is a new beginning, but it is not always easy to begin again. For many years now reading and writing has been a hugely positive part of my life. And this year two groups have helped regenerate my creative journey. The first is the Hibernian Poetry Workshop which I’ve been a member of for a number of years now. We meet in person in the Teacher’s Club on Parnell Street in Dublin on the second Friday of every month to read and discuss our new poems. Last year, for a number of reasons, I missed most of our workshops, so this year I was determined to attend regularly. The group is made up of experienced and talented poets, so I always feel an urgent responsibility to bring good work to the table. Part of the success of the group is the social element of meeting up and chatting, but the poetry is ultimately the most important part. The poets are honest, fair, critical in the best possible way, and the comments received are taken in good faith in the manner in which they are offered.
The second writerly group I meet up with is more concerned with the role of the reader. At Story Club six prose writers (some of us poets also) meet once a month via Zoom to discuss and dissect a short story chosen and circulated by one of the group on rotation. We are all writers engaged in our own projects, and as a result we tend to read like writers. There is time for chat and personal and professional catching up as well as close reading and argument. It’s remarkable how opinions can vary in such a small group in relation to the perceived success or otherwise of a story. Each time we meet I come away with a better understanding of the form and what excites me as a reader and a writer.
These regular outlets, of course, feed directly into my own creative projects, sometimes sending me off to research writers that are new to me or to read more work by a given author who has touched a chord for me. As writers and as humans, we are learning all the time. Reading and writing, immersing oneself in another life or imagining how another life could be lived, is the root of all learned empathy outside of family and role models. And for me, empathy is the key trait we need to learn if we are to continue to live together in a world that seems to have lost its way. It is also the key component of great writing.
Writing can be a lonely undertaking at times. That’s why it is vital to spend time with fellow writers and artists, to get that sense of solidarity in the face of all that the world might throw at you. That’s why I love to attend readings, author events, book launches. They are milestones on the writer’s journey, celebrations of the work and the word. And the word is what we seek, the next word, the right word, until the line is finished, or the stanza, or the poem.
When I need fuel for the journey I go back to the books that rekindle the flame, the desire to create. At this time of year I go back to the poems and the poets that started me on the road that I’m still on as a writer and a human being. I’m thinking first of all of the Irish poet, Patrick Kavangh, whose poetry was a staple on every secondary school syllabus for years. I particularly think of lines from Canal Bank Walk, written after he was diagnosed with lung cancer and had a lung removed in Baggot Street Hospital in the 1950s.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.
Another poem I return to is Begin by Kerry poet, the late Brendan Kennelly. It starts:
Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
The poem is grounded in images of the everyday: rain, flowers, couples, girls, swans and seagulls on the canal. And it ends beautifully, with a message that is as apposite today as it was when it was written:
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.
And that is what we must do every year and every day. Begin again. More than ever at the moment the world seems intent on ending itself, but we must persevere somehow, and the words and work of writers and artists give us the strength to do so.
Despatches *
i.m. Edward Sheridan, Petty Officer Telegraphist, Royal Navy (1917 – 1945)
Struck amidships,
the gaping hole invited water
and the final memories
of a short life lived
in search of Boys’ Own exploits.
You watched the ranks
of swallows on the wires,
when shadows lengthened
on a midlands farm,
and dreamt of Java,
Alexandria, Ceylon. First
time you ran away,
they sent you back:
too young. But two years later
they took you as a Boy
at fifteen years, six months.
You learned your trade in peacetime,
long before the Munich Crisis
sparked orders to weigh
anchor and embark for Freetown
and a protracted war;
tapping the code
that sent the words
to safety beyond the boom
of wave and ocean
spume to harbours
that were havens
where all futures met.
But yours was not assured.
Although you dodged the fate
of Perseus, it took a winter
visitor to sink the Lapwing
in the Barents Sea.
Homing torpedo from a U-boat
broke the boat in two.
A wife and daughter
waited, hoped a message
would not come. The worst
arrived in Royal livery,
O.H.M.S. and postage paid.
By order of the King
and the First Lord
of the Admiralty:
he gave his life to save
mankind from tyranny.
* HMS Lapwing was sunk by torpedo on 20 March 1945. Of the 229 officers and men aboard there were 61 survivors. Unfortunately, Edward Sheridan was not among them. He was posthumously awarded a Mention in Despatches, published in the London Gazette of the 7 August 1945.
Despatches was first published in Hare’s Breath, Salmon Poetry (2023)
© Brian Kirk
Brian Kirk is a poet, short story writer and novelist from Dublin. He has published two collections of poetry with Salmon Poetry, After The Fall (2017) and Hare’s Breath (2023). His poem “Birthday” won the Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2018. His short fiction chapbook It’s Not Me, It’s You won the Southword Fiction Chapbook Competition and was published by Southword Editions in 2019. He is a recipient of Professional Development and Agility Awards from the Arts Council of Ireland. His novel Riverrun was chosen as a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair 2022 and was shortlisted for the Spotlight First Novel Award 2023. His poetry has been published in the Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Cyphers, Abridged, Skylight 47, Crannóg, Live Encounters and many others, and has been featured on The Poetry Programme, RTÉ Radio One and the Words Lightly Spoken podcast. Brian has been a guest author and hosted events at literary festivals around the country including Dublin Book Festival, Listowel Writers’ Week, Red Line Book Festival, Cork Short Story Festival, Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Poetry Festival, Belfast Book Festival and Bray Literary Festival.