Where You May Find Yourself – A LitLab Anthology, edited by Anthony J Quinn (2019)
This anthology of over fifty poems by the eight current members of the LitLab writers group was launched at the 2019 Bailieborough Poetry Festival.
Editor Anthony J Quinn says of this anthology, “Inside this book, you’ll find elegies, autographical pieces, landscape vignettes, leaps in time and place, poems on history and identity, and writers grappling with loss and the idea of death… So, this is a collection every poetry fan should own and keep by their bedside. It will entertain, surprise and move, reminding us that the modern Ireland we live in is a restless country of travellers and pilgrims, where divisive lines on a map can appear and disappear, and the landscape beneath our feet pulses with history and myth.”
Poems from this anthology have previously been published in Poetry Ireland Review, The North, Crannóg, Stony Thursday Book, The Cormorant and have won prizes or have been shortlisted in the following competitions: the Edgeworth Poetry Prize, the Padraic Colum Gathering Poetry Competition, the Inchicore Ledwidge Competiton and the Walter Swan Poetry competition, Ilkley Festival.
Frank Miller Stole My Girl (2017)
This collection of poems is the third anthology by LitLab and features the work of seven writers. It was launched by its editor, Noel Monahan, at the fifth annual Bailieborough Poetry Festival in October 2017.
In his preface Noel Monahan comments that “The poems with their animated images and wide ranging subject-matter challenge us to question reality as we know it, to move beyond the local vision and to offer a rediscovery route to our lives.”
Many of the poems in this collection have won or were runners-up in national competitions such as the Trocaire/Poetry Ireland, North West Words, The Goldsmith Prize, The Allingham Poetry Prize and the Robert Monteith Prize.
Behind the Lines (2016)
To mark the decade of commemoration and the importance of the Great War members of LitLab Writers Group set themselves the task of reading the Anglo-Celt newspaper for 1915 and finding items which sparked their creativity. This volume, Behind the Lines, is the result.
The book contains copies of the original items, news reports, advertisements, alongside the poem or prose which resulted.
The collection is edited by Julia Rice O’Dea and there is a foreword by writer and broadcaster, Myles Dungan.
“The eight members of LitLab here bring you, the reader, a fascinating project, with the artistic process a vital part of finished texts. From 100-year-old newspaper clippings, they have recreated the voices and stories behind the scenes. We watch a mother and son lay spring tubers side by side and hope that a spinster woman’s pen-pal private will noisily dishevel her world. We see the young boys striding and trudging off to war, beguiled by chipper propaganda in film and print. And we begin to feel the heartbreak of womenfolk left behind to receive death notices of sons, brother and lovers, and of men returning haunted and broken.
With eight strong and very different voices, the LitLab writers bring the reader into another world. They paint pictures of both the Great War and 1915 Cavan life in very human tones. With great humour and utter tragedy, with beautiful language, fabulous imagination and much ethos, we together travel back in time.”
Julia Rice O’Dea, Editor
