Crime Poetry: It’s The New Black

We’re not worthy, etc. The venerable Critical Mick gets in touch to give us a heads up on a rather intriguing event planned by the Shoestring Collective, the gist of his communiqué running thusly:

“Just thought I’d help a buddy out and forward on word about this funky forthcoming event. Colm Keegan [right] is not only a poet, he also pulls off the grittiest accounts of Dublin scumbaggery that I have read. Nice little crime pieces about punching gardaí in nightclubs, drinking by the canal, racing rings around the M50 on cocaine ...”

Said Colm Keegan, who has twice been short-listed for the prestigious Sunday Tribune / Hennessy Short Story Award, being just one element of the Shoestring Collective, which features jazz, comedy, film and traditional Irish music. Oh, did we mention Ireland’s first and possibly only ever crime poet, Said Colm Keegan? To wit:

One Kick

One kick, one tiny flick
Of his two year old foot
And I was hooked
No matter what
His mother did
My chubby, soccer-mad little kid
Would feel my care
Forever
But I never,
Saw a day like this
When his broken mother’s courtroom kiss
Would be all he’d have
For the next ten years
No sun-filled summers,
No glittering careers
Just tears
And regret
For the man he bet,
And the way
one flick
One drunk and deadly
too strong kick
Can crush a skull

The Shoestring Collective goes down on Saturday, January 19th at the James Joyce Centre, 35 North Great George’s Street, Dublin 1. Tickets available on the night at the James Joyce Centre. Doors open at 7.50pm. Price €10. Strictly no admission after 8.25pm. Show ends 11pm. For further information contact: Stephen Kennedy 087 4196365 or Sandra Adams 085 111 3740.