Rachel Coventry
It’s a particular honour to launch the 23rd
Boyne Berries. My first publication was in Boyne Berries in 2011 when Michael Farry
was the editor. As you can imagine I really like Boyne Berries for this reason.
No acceptance by any other magazine has ever felt as good as that first one.
The writers among us know that up to the moment when you get that first precious
publication there is absolutely no guarantee that you will actually ever be
published and even though there is no guarantee that you will ever be published
again it’s just not the same level of doubt. I remember being slightly
embarrassed (embarrassment seems to go with the territory of writing) by the
poem chosen and discussing this with Kevin Higgins. He told me that you have to
trust the editor’s decision. It was good
advice and looking through this current issue it is clear that we can trust
Orla’s decisions.
One of the most important things about Boyne
Berries is precisely that it gives new writers an opportunity to see their work
in print. Whatever way you look at it, without someone willing to take a risk
on new, unknown writers there would be no new writing and without new writing
there would be no writing whatsoever. It is imperative that we value
publications that allow a writer to cut her teeth.
Of course Boyne Berries does not just
publish new writers it is one of those lovely and rare platforms where the
known and the unknown; the new and the old, are presented side by side. For
example, in this edition, it is lovely to feature alongside Patrick Chapman,
Jean O’Brien, and JA Sutherland as well as many familiar and well established names
while also encountering work from some writers that I have not read up till now.
As writers often do when they pick up a shiny
new magazine, I tend to head straight for back where you find the notes on
contributors to have a good nose at other writer’s bios. This is a particularly
gratifying exercise with a copy of Boyne Berries because it contains such a
healthy cross section of Irish writing. For a while my own bio read, “Rachel
Coventry is from Galway and she has a poem published in Boyne Berries.” In this
edition, there is work from writers who have no publication credits and others
that have many collections to their names. I have a word document on my laptop
with all the various iterations of my bio. I can trace my development of my
work by looking at it and whatever happens in the future Boyne Berries will be
the start of the story and it is gratifying to think that someone’s publication
journeys is beginning with this issue.
As we all know, it generally takes some
time, effort and bravery to get that first publication and without someone willing
to publish these poems and stories it would be difficult to go on. But it must
be noted that that the quality of the work in Boyne Berries is of a high
standard and has continued to be so over the years and that publishing new
writers does not mean publishing bad writing.
Also, the wide range of writers published
in Boyne Berries is a factor of particularly pertinence in these times when it
is also tempting, when looking at the contributors list to work out the ratio
of male to female writers in any a given publication. This has become
particularly relevant in the wake of the Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets
scandal. I wont go into it here, and probably the least said about it the
better. But at the very least we can say that there are other well-known
publications struggling to reach a gender balance and struggling with other
biases but this is a problem that doesn’t seem to affect Boyne Berries.
It seem that at grass roots the Irish
literary establishment has no difficulty including work from women writers and
other marginalized groups and yet the lion’s share of the available arts
funding seems to find its way to publications that continually show various biases.
There is nothing controversial in this. Anyone who submits work to Poetry
Ireland Review, for example, is informed, and I quote directly from the
website: “We encourage more submissions from women and people from diverse ethnic
backgrounds, who are currently under-represented in Poetry Ireland
Review”. There clearly isn’t any
need for such a disclaimer in a Boyne Berries
submission call. That there are biases that block entry into publication
for various groups is simply a fact yet that this block is not evident in
magazines like Boyne Berries is another fact that deserves a little more
consideration especially by the Arts Council.
Boyne Berries is a safe haven for the new writer and the more experienced
writer alike-a place the work is considered in its own terms and it is maybe
for this reason that it attracts such a variety of work from such a braod
spectrum of writers. In a literary world that is not an even playing field an
magazine like Boyne Berries is crucial.
Of course, despite the variety of writers showcased there is a lovely
coherence to this particular edition. I was very drawn to the Orla’s submission
call in December; I couldn’t resist it. The work chosen and the feeling of
renewal and freshness in this edition is certainly a testimony to Orla’s skills
as an editor. I look forward to the other edition that will be published later
in the year.
In this edition, I love Anne Walsh
Donnelly’s poem that opens the edition. I look forward to seeing more of her
work also Sara Mullen’s interesting poem, another name that I’m not familiar
with but I’m sure I will be hearing more off.
There are wonderful poems from Jean O’Brien, Noelle Lynskey, John Noonan
and many other poets.
At the moment my own focus is on poetry but
it was really great to read the fiction included in this edition, which
features work from Lorraine Bennet and Olivia Fitzsimmons among others. When I
get over this poetry fixation I may submit a story myself.
I also must mention Rory O’Sullivan’s cover
art, which is fresh and vivid and nicely mirrors the magazines content. Boyne
Berries is always an attractive magazine but I really love this cover
especially the use of colour.
Finally, for all these reasons, I think we
should view the launch of this 23rd edition of Boyne Berries as a
celebration of Irish and international writing; a celebration that the winter
is over (or it will be soon, hopefully). As Orla says in the editorial, we
writers have been working away all winter and it is great to see the fruits of
this work in this beautiful, fresh, spring edition and it’s particularly lovely
to gather here to launch it. The world of Irish literature is very lucky that Boyne
Writers Group supports this venture and for the hard work that Orla and Frances
do to keep the magazine going. With that I’ll declare Boyne Berries 23 launched
and we can get on with the real work of listening to some of the contributors
read.
-
Rachel Coventry, April 2018
