Cyphers magazine has published my poem – “Crow Magnus”– in their Issue 98. I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers . Thanks to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, for accepting my poem.
Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established. Sadly, Cyphers will be discontinuing publication at issue 100. I don’t think I would still be writing poetry if it wasn’t for the encouragement I got early on from Cyphers.
Seamus Heaney and Paul Durcan were also early contributors to the magazine. Not that I am in that league by any stretch of the imagination but it’s nice, metaphorically speaking, to have shared a bus with them!
Punam over at dverse asks us to “Write about your favourite drink (alcoholic/non-alcoholic), write about getting drunk, use drinking as a metaphor, in short: write a poem in a form of your choice with a drinking connection”. (Update: I omitted to link this to Punam’s prompt, so I am now linking it to Open Link Night at dverse)
Willie’s Oasis
Houses hunker in the heat Out on highway 82 The landscape sweats and saunters Billboards block the view And this is not New York City This is not Saginaw This a dry county, son This is Arkansas
And I need a pack of Pauli Girl I need a bottle of wine I’m heading for Willie’s Oasis Outside the county line
There’s a woman in line waiting Someone’s girlfriend, someone’s wife Says she wakes up every morning And asks:”Is this my life?” Beef jerky on the counter Pickles in a jar This is a dry county, son This is Arkansas
And I need a pack of Pauli Girl I need a bottle of wine I’m heading for Willie’s Oasis Outside the county line
Good ol’ boys are chugging out Storm clouds on the horizon The water looks like iced tea Birds are improvising And this is far from New York city Far from Saginaw This is Ashley County, son This is Arkansas
My friend John Mitchell turned the lyrics into the song above (that’s Ben Mink on violin, look him up!).
Cyphers magazine has published my poem – “Zlatan”– in their Issue 93. I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers . Thanks to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, for accepting my poem.
…Jim Feeney
Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established and this issue features a number of translated poems.
Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established, and as you can see from the photo above I’ve been a fan of the magazine for some time. They have now updated their website and it’s well worth a visit. They have featured poems from their latest issue and a selection from back issues plus a selection of the art from previous issues. They also have a search function where you can enter an author’s name and get a listing of the issues in which they have appeared. For example if you put in “Seamus Heaney”, you’ll find Seamus Heaney was an early contributor.
And…I too have been a contributor. (That is called “reflected glory”, it’s like describing, in the pub, after playing a game of soccer where you were on the field when the winning goal was scored and your part, usually minor, in the scoring of that goal.)
Anyway, Cyphers was one the first magazines to publish one of my poems and the one that made me think that perhaps I could write poetry, so I am thankful to them!
(Willie’s Oasis…a song about looking for drink in all the wrong places)
This a song from my collaboration with John Mitchell (The Mitchell-Feeney Project).
I wrote the lyrics and John did pretty much everything else (except the violin)
The lyric was adapted from a poem I wrote called “A Dry Country in Arkansas”. The poem was published some time ago in Cyphers, a long -running Irish literary magazine. When I gave the lyric to John, I had no concept what kind of song would emerge, I couldn’t have been happier with what he did. I’ll let John explain…
“Willie’s Oasis” turned out to be quite a challenge musically. I loved the feeling of the tune, that southern heat out on Highway 82, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t hear the music. I tried using my electric guitars, my acoustics, I even tried my piano, but no matter what key I played in and what chords I used, I couldn’t make it work. So I decided to use technology, and I searched through some of my pre-recorded samples and found this rough sounding, bluesy guitar riff. As soon as I started to work with it and edit the sample, add a few more samples, voila, “Willie’s Oasis” appeared.The only live things I put on this tune were my handclaps and my vocals.
I decided that it needed something else, so I called a wonderful violin player friend of mine named Ben Mink and asked if he would put some fiddle on the tune. Modern technology allows me to send him my tracks, he puts on the violin and sends it back to me via e-mail. We were never in the same room. I expected him to put some real down-home fiddle on, but he completely fooled me and played the most smoking electric violin parts that took the song over the edge. “
(A note about the violin player, Ben Mink: Ben co wrote “Constant Craving” with KD Lang. The song won KD Lang a Grammy in 1993. Ben and KD Lang also got co-writing credits on a Rolling Stones song, “Anybody Seen My Baby”, because the Stones noticed that the chorus of their song had similarities to the chorus of “Constant Craving”).
Cyphers magazine has published two of my poems – “Ascension” and “Prairie”– in their Winter 2019/2020 issue. I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers and in particular this time as my poems appear on the same pages as a poem by Fred Johnston, a poet I have long admired.
…Jim Feeney
Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established and this issue features a number of translated poems.
Cyphers magazine has published one of my poems – “Stiltwalker” – in their Summer 2018 issue (issue#85). I am really pleased as always to be published in Cyphers.
Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. They publish poets from all over the world, both new and established. The current issue includes an appreciation of the Irish poet and novelist, Philip Casey. In the piece, there is a quote from the poet, Michael Hartnett, which I think is not a bad guideline for writing poetry: “things that please me in poetry are precision, compassion and images that surpass the common run of language: also that the poet must have an ear for language as the musician has an ear for music….”
Cyphers magazine has published one of my poems – “A Turn Of Events” – in their Spring 2017 issue. I am really pleased about this, it’s a short poem but it’s one of the few that I have written that I don’t think needs to be fixed in some way. Cyphers is a Dublin based print only magazine which has been in existence since 1975. I have been subscribing to it since that time and I cannot recommend it enough. The current issue contains a number of tributes to Leland Bardwell, one of the founders of the magazine, who died in 2016. She was by all accounts a fascinating character and an original and playful poet. Here are a few lines from her poem “The Party Ended Yesterday”:
The sea in party frock
punched the air, slapped in the new.
The mountain moved across the light.
This and two more of her poems are included in the Spring issue.
Stopdraggingthepanda 