Only read this post if you are Irish

Have I got your attention? Admit it, you might not have been born in the Republic of Ireland, like the vast majority of the population on Planet Internet, but to defy the title of this post, you came here anyway. Good for you!
 
Here are some details of a poetry-writing-competition open to people born on the island of Ireland, of Irish nationality or long-term resident in Ireland.  You may submit a collection of poems - in English - which has not previously been published and may be considered for the The Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. 

This is the 42nd year of the award. And the prize is €1,000.

The *dead*lion is 26th July, 2013, a Friday.   The full list of rulz are here.

Paddy Kavanagh - We Love You.

A is for Alcoholic. I just cut the A word from the book to reduce the word count...

I might even have to use the word ‘alcoholic’; a word that is hated by us Irish. Instead we have culturally honoured euphemisms; such as ‘he likes to get merry’.

You'll have to read the book, Love for Beginners to see which character speaks-to-herself in the sentence above...

 The character in Love for Beginners who says that Irish people are reluctant to use the word, 'alcoholic', might have a point, but  the word 'alcoholic' has extremely serious connotations and ought not to be used justly as opposed to lightly.  But maybe one character in Love for Beginners was rightly given the diagnosis of alcoholism.

Fire red? Grass green? Which colour of the background of blog title?

At this time of writing, I have changed the colour of the background on the blog title several times. From every shade of crimson to yellow-brick-road, to verdant green and now to a dark red. Red is the univeral colour of passion, but green is a colour associated with romantic naivete.

'Green' is an older term for someone who is naive and easily fooled. The core characters are 'clueless' about love, are confounded about how to manage their relationship and the protagonist, Anna, is definitely naive when it comes to emotional attachments, until she learns hard lessons.

Every detail of design on this blog is meant to be symbolic of some theme in my book, Love for Beginners. To reflect the fact that the characters in the novel are mainly Irish-born but making a new life for themselves in London, it makes sense to reflect their Irishness by trumping the colour green. I may return to the mossy green shades.