poem

Broadcast audio recording of the award-nominated Fringe show “Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About”

kalleryan

As we enter September, it is time once again for the wonderful Dublin Fringe Festival to kick into gear. With that in mind, I wanted to resurface an audio recording we did last year to mark the 10th anniversary of our award nominated Fringe show “Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About“. (You can read more about the process of developing and staging the show here). For all the wonderful success that we experienced with the original staging and touring of the show, we never adequately captured it at the time. So, for the 10th anniversary we did a studio audio recording of a performance, and then hired the talented composer Gareth Quinn-Redmond to compose a soundtrack/score for the piece. The end result is a beautiful piece of art that elevates the original beyond our wildest dreams. It didn’t get much love at the time of release, but I stand over it being as good as anything I have ever created. Please listen and share with others. It really deserves to be heard. Spotify link above. Soundcloud link below.

If you’re interested you can pick up a copy of the limited edition 10th anniversary script here on this website. This special print run includes new forewords by all three authors, several never-before-seen photos, as well as new contemporary essays by Director Sarah Brennan, and Gemma Tipton (The Irish Times) that reflect on its impact and enduring Irish theatrical legacy. 

Spoken Word Poetry – “the hole there in the floor”

kalleryan

For several years I was referred to as a performance poet, or sometimes as a spoken word artist. In essence, I wrote lyrical things and told them animatedly into a microphone. I picked up a love for this artform when I lived in New York, and later honed and nurtured it in Ireland. The community of performance poets in Ireland was (and likely still is) very small, so we became a close knit community. Some of us even banded together to establish and run Ireland’s first ever spoken word festival, LINGO. 

My poetic other life had many other highlights including writing and touring a spoken word pla around Europe, wild performances at Electric Picnic festival, participating in an Irish poetry showcase at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in NYC, and sharing a stage in front of 500 people with the legendary Saul Williams. 

I wanted to share one of the few recordings of my work filmed by Storymap (a cool project that sought to put pins on a map of Dublin with a video story/performance associated with that place) in my spiritual home The Stag’s Head pub. A place where I hosted and ran the brownbread mixtape show for nearly a decade. I have such fond memories of eclectic, electric nights in there. Anyway, without further ado, here is my poem “The hole there in the floor, which, fittingly, was written partially in New York and in Dublin.

Three Men Talking About Things That They Kinda Know About – Limited Edition 10th Anniversary

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For anyone new to my website, I just wanted to holler about the recent publication of our award-nominated spoken word play, Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About. A decade ago we staged this show at the Dublin Fringe and subsequently toured it around Europe to huge critical acclaim. It was one of the most fulfilling and important artistic experiences of my life, and you can read more about the genesis and creation of the show here.

As for the book itself, we put incredible thought and care into creating something that was a unique work of art in-and-of-itself, with a cover produced on a letterpress printing press, on high quality handmade paper, which gives it a really unique look and feel. Inside the pages we have lots of gold too, with new forewords from myself and the other authors, archival photos, and essays from our Director, Sarah Brennan, as well as Irish Times journalist Gemma Tipton.

This unique 10th anniversary limited edition book is for sale right now directly from this website, so please consider supporting independent artists by picking up a copy today!

Poetry Performance at Pepper Cannister Church

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My good friend Stephen James Smith kicked off his UK & Ireland tour last night in the Pepper Cannister church here in Dublin, and he was gracious enough to give me a support slot. We had a quick chat before I performed my Sine Metu poem, followed by my final piece from Three Men Talking About Things They Kinda Know About. It was a gorgeous evening of music and poetry, with a really special vibe. If you can catch the show on its current tour I highly recommend it.

7 Deadly Facts (poem)

7 Deadly Facts (poem)

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"7 Deadly Facts” - Colm Mac Athlaoich (Apr 29th 2011)

Around the time my first son was born I wanted to write something to mark his arrival. I was doing a lot of festival gigs at the time and I found that humorous poems always garnered a better reaction in those large crowd settings. So, I played around with the idea of something silly and funny, that was masquerading as a parent imparting knowledge. In addition, I wanted to amplify that realisation every kid has that their parents don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about.So I took that to the extreme and built out a list of ludicrous “facts” that made me laugh. I then started whittling them down to my favourites and I ended up with seven that worked best. My mind immediately jumped to traditional parenting ideas of old like the 7 deadly sins, and I had a perfect title – 7 deadly facts. This made me smile, knowing that there was also a bit of wordplay with the term “deadly”, a Dublin slang term for great or cool. And thus, the poem below clicked into place and was finished. It’s never been shared in print before, because it undoubtedly works better as a performance piece, but it still makes me smile. I hope it does the same for you.  

7 Deadly Facts


When I was a kid
the Internet was in black & white
it ran on diesel 
and had to be wound up every night 
before you went to bed 
FACT


When I was a kid
the island of Ireland 
was made of completely detachable parts
and had an engine on it just north of Donegal
and for three weeks every summer 
the country would chug down to somewhere 
off the coast of France 
on its holidays
FACT


When I was a kid 
in Waterford 
it was actually made of crystal 
which made plumbing 
particularly disgusting 
FACT


When I was a kid
if you won the World Cup in soccer 
you got to keep the other country 
for 4 years 
until the next World Cup 
thus coining the term 
"Getting a Brazilian" 
FACT


When I was a kid
we used to dress up as tax inspectors 
at Halloween 
and fleece our stupid neighbours 
FACT 


When I was a kid 
the most popular television programme 
was an Irish language slapstick show 
Na Trí Stooges 
starring Larry, Curly 
agus Modh Coinníollach 
FACT


When I was a kid 
the most popular drink in Ireland 
was a million pints of whiskey 
deep fried 
with a short documentary about Phil Lynott 
projected through the middle of it 
on the rocks 
FACT
"7 Deadly Facts" - Paddy Lynch (April 29 2011)

Sine Metu: Fear a little less, live a little more (poem)

kalleryan

Back in 2016 I was commissioned by the friendly folks at Jameson Whiskey to write a piece of  performance poetry centred around the latin phrase Sine Metu. Sine Metu is the Jameson Family motto and appears on all of their bottles. It means “Without Fear” and at the time, their advertising campaigns were using Sine Metu prominently, with the tagline “Fear a little less, live a little more”. So, my brief was to write a poem with that as my guiding light. Personally I love these kind of gigs, because you are hired with an implicit trust and appreciation of your craft & artform, and I often find that the slightly restrictive thematic guide rails force me to think more creatively about unlocking the poem. I also want to write an excellent poem that I can really stand over and not just phone it in. So I worked hard on the commisioned piece, and the end result was the poem above, which I was very proud of. The folks at Jameson clearly loved it too and the poem took me on an epic journey. I was asked to perform it live at the annual Pernod Ricard conference on an island off the coast of France, as well as a series of other high profile Jameson events back in Ireland over the following months. Then finally, it was captured for posterity at the old Bow Street Distillery a day before major renovations began. As I watch it back, it takes on fresh meaning in that setting. I love how poetry can do that sometimes. Now, this is not my absolute best performance of the poem (there’s even an obvious mistake, see if you can spot it) but that doesn’t matter, it’s still a decent rendition. And I’m so glad to have a document of this creative milestone. I still like the poem a lot. Hope you like it too.

Forgive Yourself by Jonas Gardell

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The Swedish author and comedian Jonas Gardell is one of my favourite writers. There is a gentle beauty and disarming truth in his deceptively simple Swedish writing. Alas not much of his work is translated into English, but it has been translated into a number of other European languages.His novel “En Komikers Uppväxt” (A Comedian Grows Up) had a profound impact on me when I read it almost 30 years ago, and it has stayed with me ever since. It was introduced to me as an undergraduate in college by a visiting lecturer from Sweden, and such was the effect of reading it (in the original Swedish language), that I ended up writing my entire undergraduate thesis about Jonas Gardell’s novels. The entire book is magical, but it is the opening page of the book that I often turn to again and again. On that page sits this simple, elegant, beautiful poem. It says so much with so little and sets the tone for the entire novel.

För allt du hatar hos dig själv – förlåt dig själv
För allt du älskar hos dig själv – förlåt dig själv
För allt du skäms över
För allt du är stolt över
För allt du vill dölja
För allt du vill visa upp
För allt som inte blev som det skulle
För allt du är
För allt du vill vara
Förlåt dig själv

For everything you hate about yourself – forgive yourself
For everything you love about yourself – forgive yourself
For everything you are ashamed of
For everything you are proud of
For everything you want to hide
For everything you want to show off
For everything that did not turn out as it should
For all that you are
For everything you want to be
Forgive yourself

The book then closes with an equally beautiful, poetic and enigmatic piece that manages to capture the magical innocence of youth and all that it brings. A perfect bookend, literally. I have read these pieces many times at live spoken word events and they always get a huge response. There is something about hearing the musicality of the foreign tongue at first, and then the translation that unveils its beauty. While there is always a little bit of magic lost in any translation (my own translations here included), these pieces still retain the majority of what made them special.

Allt ska vi glömma och allt ska vi förlora.

Och någon annan dag, men inte nu, ska jag visa dig

den hemliga grottan, den porlande bäcken

jag aldrig fann som barn.

Everything we shall forget and everything we shall lose

And another day, but not now, I will show you

the secret cave, the babbling brook

that I never found as a child

A Bob Dylan poem

kalleryan

I recently renovated my office at home and put up my treasured Bob Dylan poster on the wall. Not only is Bob Dylan an artistic hero of mine, he also plays a huge role for me in learning about the craft of great writing. As for the poster; the story of how I acquired it is one of my most treasured New York moments. So, in the spirit of sharing, here is a brand new poem I wrote to try and capture that moment when Bob and I crossed paths in his most famous New York haunts (metaphorically).

the hard rain

surfacing from a gig
in a dive bar
where they are handing over

chunks of the bar
and pints of Courvoisier
because they’re
“Closing down,
tonight motherfucker, tonight!”

I ask for the huge poster of
Bob Dylan
hanging on the wet wall
by the swaying bartender

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,
But, fuck yeah, take it bro”
he says
with a wink
 
I throw back my drink
balance Bob’s wiry frame
over my head
for shelter 
from the storm

freewheelin’ outside
into the concrete caverns
 
the thin mercury sound
of wild Village wind
washing rain inside my shoes

my heels 
still wandering
to the subway station
at 4th street
positively 
singing