Library News

The latest batch of Library News on the College website is worth checking out here. Librarian Tom McConville writes about the recent edition of The Submarine. He also has interesting thoughts on reading generally, and on Sebastian Barry's novel The Secret Scripture.

A City Street Late at Night

Transition Year pupils are currently completing their Work Portfolios as they come towards the end of their course. Ten pieces of work (short stories, essays, personal pieces) have to be re-written and then revised before being presented on May 23rd.

Thomas Emmet has written a descriptive piece for his portfolio called 'A City Centre Late at Night', and you can read it below (click on top right icon for full screen):-
Emmet Night

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Podcast 7: Macbeth revision IV - Malcolm the hero?

Our fourth Macbeth revision podcast in a series leading up to the Leaving Certificate looks primarily at the latter part of the play. It leads on from last week's session, which examined the nature of order and law in the early part of the play. This week, we consider the end of the story, looking particularly at Malcolm and Macduff in the long scene set in England, the English King Edward, and our feelings as an audience as we watch Macbeth vanquished by the forces of decency.

Here are the statistics quoted in the podcast, comparing Macbeth to Hamlet (note that counting depends on which edition you're using):-

• There are 27 scenes in Macbeth, with an average of 63 lines per scene.
• There are 20 scenes in Hamlet, with an average of 193 lines per scene.
• Macbeth is 1755 lines long; Hamlet is 3856 lines long (so Macbeth is 45% the length of Hamlet)
• The English scene (240 lines) is the much the longest in Macbeth; it would be 6th longest in Hamlet, which has one of 612 lines (II ii).
  

Listen to the episode via the player below:-

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You can also listen to our podcasts via the 'widget' on the sidebar to the right, or by visiting our podcast page here (if you have iTunes on your computer you can also subscribe by clicking here, and so download our episodes to your MP3 player, or by searching for 'SCC English' in the iTunes Store).

III form Scholarship

This morning eight Junior Cert pupils start two days of scholarship papers with English; they are being tested on an unseen poem (Eileen Sheehan's 'Waking') and the opening of Julia Kelly's novel With My Lazy Eye (go here for an interview and review on RTE's 'The View'). Then they write a literary essay recommending a book, and comparing it to others.

This evening, all our III formers will be attending the Gate Theatre's production of All My Sons: we'll have reviews here in due course.

Billy Collins reading

While putting up the video interview with Helen Garner yesterday, we came across a film of one of our favourite poets, Billy Collins, on Fora.tv, so here it is, below. Try out the wonderful 'On the Love Poem' with which he starts.

Collins has provided two of our Poems of the Week - 'The Dead' in January 2009, and 'Walking Across the Atlantic' in November 2007.

The Spare Room

The Spare Room, by the Australian writer Helen Garner, is both spare and unsparing. Just out in paperback, this is a very short novel, but is all the more resonant and effective for its laser-like concentration on the see-sawing emotions of the central character, a 60ish journalist called Helen. She volunteers to look after Nicola, an extrovert and eccentric friend who is desperately ill with cancer and has turned to a series of medical charlatans for a cure. Helen agrees to put her up for three weeks; it turns out to be much harder than she expects to put up with her.

This novel is good about many things - the dependencies of friendship and caring, the strengths and weaknesses of an older woman, the city of Melbourne, food and drink. It's full of both rawly intense moments and light funny ones. It is beautifully and elegantly controlled, despite its grim subject-matter. The epigraph is from Elizabeth Jolley: 'It is a privilege to prepare the place where someone else will sleep', about which Garner says:-

I was so struck by it, it stayed in my mind ever since. Like a lot of things that Elizabeth Jolley said, it seems to take the tiny tasks of daily life and make something rich out of them. She seemed to have this wonderful way of connecting humble daily tasks with very deep meanings. So I always knew that I was going to be able to use that as an epigraph when I wanted to write this book, so I did, and I'm glad.

Listen to Helen Garner talking at length about the book here on ABC Radio (with a long reading from the start of the book - and the transcript is here) and read a profile of her in The Australian here. Below, she talks to ABC.


JMG

'Monumental'

The latest post from entries to the Junior Poetry Prize competition is by Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi:

'Monumental', by Aoise Keogan-Nooshabadi

Monumental,
We sat there.
Time,
Watching it pass,
Watching you pass.

We tried to catch it,
As it longingly lurked
under our feet.
But it wouldn’t stop, hold, pause.
Now, one can only hope.

But Time
Promised to come to me.
Only then
I can promise to hold you,
Once again.

Gala Concert

Our annual Gala Concert is on Saturday 16th May, and details of how to get tickets are on the College site here. As usual, members of the English Department are involved in singing, but the real purpose of this note is an excuse to post Celeste Guinness's lovely prize-winning poster and programme cover for the concert.

'Family Breakup', 'A Simple Coin'

Two more poems from the recent Junior Poetry Prize competition, the first being another by the eventual winner :-

'Family Breakup', by Opeline Kellett, III form

Land the cause of all evil
money the root of the problem
tranquillity
solitude
silence

split

The relatives you treasured
the memories you saved
motionless
dumb
confused

divide

Times that you savoured
loved ones you'll miss
heartbreak
tears
abandoned



'A Simple Coin', by Lauren Scully, I form

It causes a lot of harm,
Greedy and selfish,
The people become.
It’s shiny and silver,
Like a new horseshoe.
It cannot buy happiness,
But sometimes people will try to.
It is vital equipment for life,
As is a sword in a fight.
When put in a pocket,
It rattles as it moves,
Just like planets in space,
When placed in a vending machine,
It is swapped with an item,
As the buying begins to take place.
This can be a magical thing.

Carol Ann Duffy's 'Text'

Our 50th Poem of the Week (since the scheme of displaying poems around the school started two years ago) is 'Text' by the new British Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. See her discuss her new position on the Guardian site here.

'Text' is from her fine T.S. Eliot Prize-winning collection of love poems, Rapture, and is a characteristically witty, sharp and indeed painful piece, and one of the first poems to take on this quite recent technology.

Her 'Valentine' was our Poem of the Week leading up to last February 14th...

Willis Shakespeare Prize, 2009

Congratulations to Crispin Maenpaa, who has won the Willis Memorial Prize for the Knowledge of Shakespeare for the second year in a row. The best other entries in forms received Distinctions and book-tokens : Rebecca Feeney-Barry (VI) and Carl-Victor Wachs (V).

The recent exam involved examining sonnet number 93, and then writing a general essay using knowledge of Shakespeare's plays, and also comparing them to those by other dramatists.

Podcast 6: Macbeth revision III - King Macbeth

Our third Macbeth revision podcast is called 'King Macbeth - law and order in Scotland', and deals with the importance of kingship and order in the play, as these ideas reflect thinking in Shakespeare's England. The 'cultural context' of the play, especially as seen through Duncan's rule in the first part of the drama, is discussed.

Two links to references in the podcast :-

• a definition of 'tanistry' here
• an family tree of James I, and characters in the play, here

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You can also listen to our podcasts via the 'widget' on the sidebar to the right, or by visiting our podcast page here (if you have iTunes on your computer you can also subscribe by clicking here, and so download our episodes to your MP3 player, or by searching for 'SCC English' in the iTunes Store).

Mobile Podbean

A note to visitors interested in our podcasts who are using mobile devices, such as iPhones: our podcast site has a special mobile version, which is displayed like the demo to the left (you can also view the full version). Then you have a handy stripped-down version of the site, and can easily see the podcasts available.

Podcast 5: Geoffrey Chaucer - an interview with Terry Dolan

Our fifth podcast is an interview with Professor Terry Dolan, about the life and work of the great Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer and especially his masterpiece The Canterbury Tales. See today's earlier post for more about Terry Dolan.

To see The Canterbury Tales online, together with translations, go here. Books referred to in the interview, include Neville Coghill's translation of the Tales, Terry Jones's Chaucer's Knight: Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary, and Who Murdered Chaucer? by Terry Jones, Terry Dolan and others.

Listen to the podcast via the player below:-

Powered by Podbean.com

You can also listen to our podcasts via the 'widget' on the sidebar to the right, or by visiting our podcast page here (if you have iTunes on your computer you can also subscribe by clicking here, and so download our episodes to your MP3 player, or by searching for 'SCC English' in the iTunes Store).

Professor Dolan on American English

Last night, Professor Terry Dolan talked to our senior pupils about the origins and history of American language. He is pictured above with staff and visitors at dinner before the talk. During an informal talk in the Drawing Room to VI, V and IV formers, he ranged over the origins and uses of words such as 'kibosh', 'OK', 'cool', 'caucus', 'dollar', 'buck', 'Yankee' and 'bagel', and then answered many questions about all sorts of words used in different versions of English, including Hiberno-English.

Professor Dolan was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, where he was Hastings Senior Scholar and later Junior Dean. He worked at University College, Dublin, from 1970 in the Department of Old and Middle English, being first Associate Professor, and then Professor of English and Professor of Hiberno-English. He retired from UCD a year ago. He has been a guest lecturer all over the world, including Brazil, Egypt, USA, Denmark, China and Belgium. He was Director of the International James Joyce Summer School in Dublin. He has also broadcast widely on BBC and RTE, and has a regular slot on Sean Moncrieff's afternoon show on Newstalk where he discusses 'The Meaning of Words'. He is the compiler of the Dictionary of Hiberno-English, a new edition of which he is working on, and his website on Hiberno-English can be visited here. See today's other post for details of his podcast interview on Geoffrey Chaucer.

Junior Poetry : 'Teapot' and 'Dawn'

Here are two more poems from the recent Junior Poetry Prize entries. Oliver (I form) and Mark (Primary) were given book tokens for their writing.

'Teapot', by Oliver Glenn-Craigie

My Dad’s old teapot,
Boiling when it’s angry,
Smelling of smoky Chinese tea,
The steam whistling out of the spout,
The worn handle willing to retire
But staying strong,
The peeling paint falling off,
The smooth edges becoming rough,
Since his teenage years making thousands
Of cups, filled with warmth inside.


'Dawn', by Mark Russell

A golden shaft from above,
Illuminates a heavy shadow’s murky dull.
From frightening darkness,
And unleashed fears,
Come showers of hopefulness,
A green, bright day of clear.

As a deep, crimson sliver
Surfaces on the horizon,
Twittering birds call out their early morning mantra.
The light appears as their little voices quiver.

The colours of day-time, they start to emerge,
Lush greens, rich browns and the bright pink of flowers.

A gentle reminder, that it’s never really gone.
The sun shines its light, like it always has shone.

Professor T.P. Dolan

We're delighted to be welcoming to the College tonight Professor Terry Dolan, a long-time friend of and visitor to St Columba's. This evening he will be talking about American English and associated subjects to an audience of senior pupils in the Drawing Room. We'll have a report tomorrow, and also shortly a podcast interview with him about the works of the great Geoffrey Chaucer.

'Shadows'

In last term's exam, Nicola Dalrymple from Primary wrote a story which she wanted to be 'unpredictable', which it certainly is. Read it below via Scribd (click the icon in the top right-hand corner to see the document in full-page view):
Shadows, Nicola Dalrymple

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