Afric McGlinchey – Four Poems…………………..Contemporary Irish Poetry Index

Afric McGlinchey

A ‘blow-back’ after growing up in Zimbabwe, Irish-born Afric McGlinchey’s début collection, The lucky star of hidden things (Salmon Poetry, 2012), was also published in Italian by l’Arcolaio. Her work has been translated into five languages. Winner of the 40th Hennessy poetry award among others, she was selected for the 2014 Italo-Irish Literature Exchange. Her work has been studied in the Irish Leaving Certificate and she has read at the Troubadour (London), Harare International Arts Festival (Zimbabwe), Iowa Book Festival (USA) and Poetry Africa (Durban, South Africa). Selected as one of Ireland’s ‘Rising Poets’ by Poetry Ireland Review, Afric was awarded an Arts bursary to write her Forward-nominated collection, Ghost of the Fisher Cat. She is a freelance editor and lives in West Cork, Ireland.

Afric’s website can be found at www.africmcglinchey.com

Ghost of the Fisher Cat

It’s been a funny year so far – in fact funny is probably the wrong word – dangerous might be better. Yes, it seems to be developing into my year of living dangerously! It began with a fall in late February when I was on my way to a work meeting. I was ambushed by a small variation in floor level and tripped and fell onto my left arm. When I looked up it was into the faces of four horrified students who promptly rescued me. I’d forgotten how humiliating it can feel to fall over in a public place, especially when you can’t immediately scramble to your feet and brush it off with a laugh. The students were lovely and I was eventually restored to a vertical position and taken to the medical centre and then sent for an x-ray.

What seemed at first to be a torn ligament…

So here we, round the bend and the final leg, the finish line in sight.

With only a few days left in March, it’s time to get those Reading Ireland posts in.

Some housekeeping announcements:

The Hennessy Literary Awards take place tomorrow evening in Dublin. Congratulations and best of luck to all the shortlisted writers, including friend of the Begorrathon, Clare O’Dea. I attended last year’s ceremony as I was on the shortlist [modest bow] and it’s a lovely evening.

I had planned to go this year as well, but alas I won’t be attending as my invitation appears to have been lost in the post.

The lovely people at Banshee are launching their new issue later this week in Dublin. It just so happens I have a story in it [another modest bow] and the issue, which also features work by Stephanie Conn,