Jackie Gorman's opening words from the launch of Boyne Berries 21 on Thursday night. Thank you to everyone for their participation.
I'm delighted to be here for the launch of Boyne Berries 21 as I've been a long time fan of this publication. It's lovely to have a poem in this edition but it's a particular honour to be asked to launch it as it contains such amazing work, by writers whose work I've admired for some time and those I'm discovering for the first time. In launching this edition, I consider myself as a representative for all the writers that have work in this edition, I hope I can do them justice in some small way. Never have words been more important. It's clear from reading the work in this edition that what is contained between these pages is a salve for the times we live in, because nothing in here can be said to be post-truth or heaven preserve us, an alternative fact ! Writers generally tend to deal in currencies less brittle than this. Reading the work in the collection, I was reminded of the words of that wonderful American Poet Mary Oliver who said about writing - "it's a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart [that courageous but also shy factor of emotion] and the learned skills of the conscious mind." She describes it as a kind of love affair and as I read the last edition of Boyne Berries last week, I was very grateful for many love affairs that have gone into this edition. It's not possible to name all the contributors but I do want to say I was touched, moved, amused, amazed and mesmerized by the river of words that are in this edition. In launching it, I hope it has a joyous voyage into the world. Thanks so much to Orla Fay for this opportunity and now perhaps it's time for some readings. Congratulations to all involved.
