The Real Map of Ireland depicts Ireland’s marine territory of some 900,000 km2. Ten times the size of the island of Ireland, it’s barely known yet already overfished. The largest industrial scale Kelp Extraction Licence ever issued in Irish or British waters may soon yield animal-care products and nutraceuticals. Is Kelp deforestation of Bantry Bay akin to rainforest destruction elsewhere?
[Read more…] about UnderwaterChapbooks
Shyness
Shyness: me interviewing ChatGPT 3.5 on August 24th, 2023 (unexpurgated).
All Images © Simon Robinson 2023
Available now from Bracket Books Ireland at outlets like FabHappy or WalkingCommentary.
Chapbook About Poem
Victoria Amelina wrote that ‘as long as a writer is still read, they remain alive’. I found myself looking out to sea in the west of Ireland the day after she was buried. I wept into the rain on hearing the breeze whispering fragments of swimmers’ words.
Images © Simon Robinson
Available now from Bracket Books Ireland at outlets like FabHappy or WalkingCommentary.
Absences
Evidence of absence can be hard to find. Since our minds are endlessly inquisitive and infinitely creative, belief doesn’t have to mean an absence of doubt. Agree or disagree, David Farrier suggests our signatures will remain when we will be absent. Maybe those fossilised traces will be concreted radioactive waste among middens of chicken bones wrapped in plastic but what about narrative, myth and metaphor?
Available now from Bracket Books Ireland at outlets like FabHappy or WalkingCommentary.
Dispassionate Eye
I created this chapbook after my van’s side mirror was clipped and broken by a passing truck. I cursed its crossing into my lane on the narrow suburban road. Then I exchanged shards of mirror-glass tidied up from the tarmac. Perhaps I should have exchanged insurance particulars. My thinking was that the delivery truck company would have recorded the incident, establishing their driver’s culpability beyond doubt.
Images © Simon Robinson | Campark X30 | 18 mm | 1/3800s | f/2.6 | ISO 100 | cycle helmet mount
Available now from Bracket Books Ireland at outlets like FabHappy or WalkingCommentary.
Acid Yellow
This chapbook started with oat milk sweetened coffee. Truth and consequences took over.
Available now from Bracket Books Ireland at outlets like FabHappy or WalkingCommentary.