The Western Writers Centre

The French literature journal, La Passe, is out again with issue No 9, Autumn/Winter. It’s oddly attractive format - about seven inches long, three across - doesn’t prevent it being one of the foremost literary publications in Paris. Edited by Muriel Martin and Philippe Blondeau, himself a poet and literary experimenter, it manages to cram into its eighty-seven beautifully-printed pages poems, accompanying graphics, experimental writing mixing with graphics, an entire experiment on the compression and expansion of words and phrases and a set of love-letters which are themselves experiments; all this si perhaps what the editorial describes as créolisation of style and form. Above all, even a quick read through these pages gives one the impression of being pulled into an unfamiliar  - in Irish terms - discussion about the uses of literature. No such debate about poetry for instance ever takes place in our literary journals here. Perhaps it’s taken for granted that we know all there is to know about poetry. Read Régis Macle, if you think that, and you can find him in the pages of this fine magazine; a journal which yet again reminds us that we are in grave danger of becoming very stale and insular indeed. Perhaps some of us even prefer it that way.

La Passe - Une Revue des Langues Poétiques. Directeur de la publication Philippe Blondeau. 3, rue des Moulins, 80250 Remiencourt. Four issues €30.

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Tá leabhar nua filíochta Gaeilge le seoladh ar an Satharn an 5ú lá Nollaig i Músaem Cathrach na Gaillimhe - 3pm. Togra le hIonad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlín Maude a bhuaigh comórtas Bus Éireann/Foras na Gaeilge atá sa leabhar.  Saothar thriúr atá le fáil ar pár ann, Seosamh ó Guairim, Colette Nic Aodha agus Ailbhe Ni Ghearbhuigh.Tá an leabhar speisialta seo urraithe ag Bus Éireann/Foras na Gaeilge. Sabine Springer a dhear an leabhar. Súil agam gur féidir leat bheith linn ar an lá.

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