The Unlikely Poet

The Big Picture
for Raymond Armstrong

Outside the window,
B-movie rain falls in floods.
Someone must be on my roof,
Sending those buckets down.

Other hands have the house surrounded
With cranes and booms;
The gardens tracked,
The cameras dollying along.

While the key grip corners the gaffer,
The continuity girl works
With an awkward shoe,
And the best boy does what best boys do.

I suppose they are waiting on me.
Well, they can wait.
I'm not coming out.
What's happening is happening inside.

....From The Mason's Tongue

source - http://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/ppa341.html

1999
Irish poet challenges vision of the stereotype or . . .
Although we know we should never stereotype, the common vision most have of a poet includes the belief that he or she must be introspective and shy. Therefore, it just doesn’t seem right to meet a poet who once hung out with a gang of thugs in a tough Northern Ireland neighborhood. Nor does it seem right to meet one that was one of his local town’s First-Fifteen rugby players and often earned his living by being a barman and a bouncer!
But that description is all part of the persona of Adrian Rice who, in October, spent five weeks as L-R’s poet-in residence. He was one of only four artists (the others: a musician, a storyteller and a dancer) selected to represent Northern Ireland as part of the U.S. Ireland Residency Exchange Program.
"If I can become a poet, so can you. You can find ideas anywhere. You don't have to look outside your own locality to find something to write about."
Founder of Abbey Press, a publishing house in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland, Rice is now editor of poetry books, as well as books of cultural history and literary criticism. A published author, he also writes his own poetry, travels the country teaching and talking with students young and old, participates in and organizes arts fairs, and frequently guests on television. The Irish, he explained, are fond of their poets and always enjoy listening to and talking with them.
Rice’s life wasn’t always so pleasant. Born in 1958 in Belfast, the son of hardworking, Protestant parents, Rice describes himself as the typical "tough guy." His future was bleak. "Fortunately," Rice said with a smile, "my parents wanted better for me.
Fearing I’d end up shooting someone, they took their hard-earned money and sent me to a good country school, away from the bad influences."There, Rice grew to love books and learning, especially literature. "My high school taught poetry as part of the syllabus," he said. "Of course, I pretended not to like it. Tough guys aren’t supposed to like poetry, you know," he noted, chuckling.But in time, education and literature became more important to him than maintaining his tough image. "I started buying books instead of stealing them," he said.
And, working hard, he went on to study at the University of Ulster, where he graduated with two degrees: one in literature and the other in Irish Literature.
Still, Rice didn’t start writing poetry until much later. "Ross Wilson (famed Irish portrait painter and a childhood friend) talked me into it," he explained. "I was afraid to try. Although some people write poetry simply to please themselves, that was never a goal for me. If I couldn’t write poetry well enough to be successful at it, if I couldn’t write poetry that my readers would like and that my peers could respect, I didn’t want to write poetry at all."It took three years before Rice gained the confidence he needed. "During that time Ross and I met often," Rice said. "He taught me about art. I taught him about poetry."The result of those talks was Muck Island, a collaboration so artistic in presentation as well as in visual art and the written word, that it has received critical acclaim. "Our goal from the beginning was to celebrate our own area," said Rice, explaining that Muck Island is part of a group of islands northeast of Belfast.The end result of their collaboration was the creation of a box set of images and poems. The box itself, when opened, becomes a metaphorical island that the author and the artist populate with their words and their pictures. To honor their heritage, the words -- translated into Gaelic -- are also included in the presentation. Muck Island is now in collections at the Tate Gallery, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston College, Swarthmore College and the Lamont Library at Harvard University.
Rice believes poetry can be political and satiric as well as intensely personal and states his latest book The Mason’s Tongue (1999) is a good summation of what he is trying to do. He has been delighted with its reception.
Poet Seamus Heaney, who received the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote of The Mason’s Tongue: "Adrian Rice has a nice sense of what he is up to as a poet: I like and admire the way his district and his diction are so artfully tongue-in-cheek and hand-in-glove."
Ruth Padel wrote: "…This is a book in plain language about plain people. . . . (it) seems, sadly and genuinely, to soulsearch on behalf of its community and therefore do it honour."Two very short poems in the book tweak in an oblique way at the "troubles" in Northern Ireland. "The Green Light" is a critical dig at the IRA cease-fire agreement and wonders, is it (the cease-fire) really real? "Gable End," on the other hand, was inspired by graffiti seen on a wall and is an explicit dig at militant Protestantism.There has been an interesting reaction to the two poems, Rice noted, saying that the Protestants like "Green Light," but take umbrage with the fact that he wrote so severely about them in "Gable End." Catholics, on the other hand, intensely dislike "Green Light," but think "Gable End" is an appropriate description of the Protestants. "We live in the politics of the time," Rice said. "I try to shout at the extremists on all sides."All is not dark in this collection, however. Another poem, "Rinn Seimhene Blackbird," is written in a light-hearted fashion for Rice’s three children: Matthew, Charis and Charlotte. And, there is neither an artist nor a writer who could not associate with his words in "The Artist on the Eve of a Breakthrough." The poem begins-- He is not feeling well today. Like himself, He feels his latest efforts on canvas are sickly.
While in Hickory, Rice spoke to and worked with L-R students as well as with students in community grade schools through high schools, including high-risk seniors. He met with teachers, with senior citizens and with community theatre participants.His words were the same to all. "It’s okay to be a poet," he encouraged. "If I can become a poet, so can you. You can find ideas anywhere. You don’t have to look outside your own locality to find something to write about."His advice to aspiring writers was to " . . . pay close attention to the fundamental accuracy of statement. Make sure you are saying exactly what you mean to say. If you don’t, you’ll confuse your reader."And, he always added, "Think about meter, syllabic count and rhythm. Punctuation is critical and carries a lot of weight." Writing is hard work, he stressed. It may take as long as three months to get even a short poem exactly right."Adrian has been totally selfless," said Dr. Rand Brandes, L-R English professor and coordinator of the college Visiting Writer series, which joined with the Catawba County Council for the Arts to bring Rice to the area. "Such long days. Yet he has been totally accommodating. What talent! What personality."
Rice said he will return home to Belfast weary but hopeful that he has been able to help others with their writing, and that he has been a good cultural ambassador for Ireland.Talk to anyone Rice has met during his extraordinary residency. They will tell you that his zeal for his work, his openness about his life, and his ability to communicate and to share his craft with others are experiences they will remember always."Although Adrian has returned home, he has touched our lives and left a part of himself behind," said one of his admirers recently.The unlikely poet evidently achieved his goals and much, much more.

Author’s note: Other publications include Impediments (1997) a poetry chapbook, which secured the inaugural Sir James Kilfedder Memorial Bursary for Emerging Artists, and Signals (editor, 1997) an anthology of poetry and prose that was a Times Educational Supplement paperback choice. Rice came to the U.S. after being selected by the two primary arts councils in Ireland, in association with the Americans for the Arts and the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts as part of the U.S. Ireland Residency Exchange Program. His residency in Hickory was granted because of the college’s Visiting Writers Series’ long history of serving both the college and the community, a primary goal of the series.

Marcia Copper

source - http://www.lrc.edu/news/profile/Fall99/poet.htm



2005
Abbey Press editor and poet Adrian Rice has finished his Visiting Writer- in- Residence at Lenoir-Rhyne College, NC. However, he will be staying on to fulfill reading/lecture/workshop engagements with Chapel Hill, Duke, NC State and High Point Universities, among others, and to continue teaching as Adjunct Professor at Lenoir-Rhyne College in the fall. Adrian has recently been appointed to the Writer's Series Steering Committee by Dr. Rand Brandes.

source - http://www.abbeypressbooks.com/