[spectre] Billy Collins & the Ballymaloe Poetry Prize

[Séamas Cain]

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BILLY COLLINS & THE BALLYMALOE POETRY PRIZE

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Dear friends of SPECTRE,

The Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize, at €10,000, is the highest
paying literary award in Ireland.  It is administered by the personnel of
The Moth Magazine.  It is sponsored and funded in part by the Ballymaloe
Cookery School and its various commercial products and services.  The
Ballymaloe Prize, oddly enough in Ireland, excludes Irish-language poets
from the competition.

Billy Collins, twice a designated poet laureate in the United States, has
agreed to be the international Judge for this Ballymaloe Prize.  Despite
repeated efforts of appeal to the poet laureate Collins that both the
administration and the commercial sponsor of the Prize are biased and
exclusionary, Mr. Collins and his literary agent are disinterested and
silent.  Like the proverbial Yankee who has stumbled into an alien land,
Mr. Collins, with fragments of dreams of Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, seems
to believe that he and he alone can adjudicate the world and establish
order and forbearance.

Both the European Union and the United Nations have declared that all of
the Celtic languages are seriously endangered!  Mr. Collins, however, does
not seem to find this predicament of much interest or concern.  He bumbles
ahead with his own notions, a dilletante in a new colonialized Ireland.
Should Irish-language writers be respected?  Should Irish-language writers
have their own dignity?  Perhaps not in this new colonialized world of
Billy Collins.

I am joining with other writers in calling for an international boycott of
the Ballymaloe International Prize.  We call for a boycott of The Moth
Magazine.  Further, we call for a boycott of the Ballymaloe Cookery School
and its various commercial products.  Let them suffer an international
boycott of their tomato relish and other commodities.

Also, we call for a boycott of the books, chapbooks, and other products and
services of Billy Collins, until he stops and recognizes that
Irish-language writers are not sub-human.

Sincerely,

Séamas Cain
http://www.freewebs.com/seamascain

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FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO ...


http://seamascain-writernetwork.org/whats_new_2.html

http://www.themothmagazine.com/a1-page.asp?ID=7691&page=10

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SEND MESSAGES OF PROTEST TO ...

"The Ballymaloe Cookery School," Shanagarry, County Cork, Ireland

Phone : +353.21.4646785

Fax : +353.21.4646909

(BALLYMALOE encourage arrival at their facilities by Helicopter!)

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ALSO SEND MESSAGES OF PROTEST TO ...

Ballymaloe <res at ballymaloe.ie>

Rebecca O'Connor <editor at themothmagazine.com>

Kathryn Barcos <Kathryn at barclayagency.com>

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Míle buíochas!

Beannacht,

Séamas Cain,
1382 Highland Village Drive,
Unit Number One,
Duluth, Minnesota,
U.S.A.,
55811 - 5218

Phone : +218.591.8411

Email : seamascain at gmail.com

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