Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2026
Altered Slant, poem by Margaret Kiernan.
Altered Slant
The news is dire, scores of schoolgirls have been bombed, it is far away from here, but I wonder if the pilots knew what they were viewing when they received their co-ordinates to fly to the city of Minab and let those missiles float down, like a hawk chasing down its prey. I need to get out, I need to move, I must do something. I walk by water, let my thoughts float out, God is listening, I can pray. The rising smell of newly shifted earth reaches to the canal path beyond the fields where a digger is knocking trees and bramble bushes all along the edges, a clearing is happening and a space for new houses. I can hear the digger bash and bang, I see it lift full grown trees and place them to one side. This vista is changing on this new spring morning where a milky sun rises above the swans. Those fields where the horses galloped, jumped, and grazed will soon be full of concrete. The echo of galloping hooves across the paddocks will be no-more, no one will know about the beautiful hollow at the edge of the trees, where you could sit and dream, to heal in the sun.
© Margaret Kiernan
Margaret Kiernan is an Irish author and a Best of The Net Nominee for Creative Non-Fiction Award, 2021 and, 2022 and poetry and essay, 2023. She writes poetry, fiction, essay, memoir, and flash. She has had poetry and prose published in hard back, in e-book, on-line, and in literary journals and magazines, in Ireland, UK, America, Canada, Germany, India, and Australia. She also has multiple short stories and poems in anthology collections and cultural publications.
She launched her Live eBook, a young adult fiction, in June 2024, titled, “The Bay of Nectar” published by liveencounterspublishing.net The Bay of Nectar by Margaret Kiernan by Live Encounterspublishing.net – Issuu. https://issuu.com/liveencounters/docs/the-bay-of-nectar-by-margaret-kiernan-issuu
Alba Publishing, UK published her first poetry collection in July 2024, titled, “A Mirage of Lost Things.”
Public profile & URL www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-kiernan-a5265417, She has Professional Membership at the Irish Writers Centre. Dublin. Ireland.
She participated in a published collection in which professional writers and recognised curators participated, Published on December 6th, 2022. Ref: K. Higgins Chapbook Gift Presentation.
The Arts Council of Ireland and Westmeath County Council Arts Office awarded her a Professional Development Bursary, 2021.
Mayo County Council and The Arts Council of Ireland granted her a Heinrich Boll Residency and Bursary, 2023.
Shortlisted in competitions, e.g., The Cathal Bui Bel-coo International Poetry competition, 2021, The Bard of Connacht competition in 2022. Runner-up in The Hannah Grealy International Literary Awards. 2023