And All The Other Puppets

Luke Kennard

The targeted adverts got better and better until there was no longer

any product; pure eerie prescience.

The sound of a piano underwater.

What is this need to be adored by absolutely everyone which is felt

by absolutely everyone. Some preening vanity which has its

manifestation one way or another, has its way, and even then

suspects some ulterior motive. Hopes to find worse in others.

Have you just trodden on a nectarine? (I had just trodden on a

nectarine).

You know how she has made you want to write again? You could

die of this.

That one sad thing which you know makes you ultimately unloveable.

Speak it now in the following silence. Cue the strings. Cut the

strings. How frightening everything is. I could be your surge

protector. Or something.

Hell is every Paris Review at once. I think what I was trying to do here.

I mean.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 120:

Edited by Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke's final issue as editor is packed with new poems from leading contemporary poets, including Simon Armitage, Sinéad Morrissey, Colette Bryce, Paul Muldoon, Sean O'Brien and Caitríona O'Reilly. Books reviewed include new work from Derek Mahon, Bernard O'Donoghue, Rita Ann Higgins, Martina Evans, Denise Riley and the 2016 Forward Prize winner Vahni Capildeo. The centrepiece of the issue is an interview with Paul Muldoon in which the Armagh maestro shares his thoughts on subjects as diverse as public surveillance, the economic down-turn, and the exclamation mark. The cover image is by photographer Justyna Kielbowicz, and the issue also contains award-winning artwork from Sven Sandberg, Aoife Dunne, Jane Rainey, and Michelle Hall. Instead of an editorial, Vona herself answers the questionnaire she put to the contributors of Poetry Ireland Review Issue 118: The Rising Generation.