Tomás
Ó Cárthaigh, 13 Church Street, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, Ireland
Paul
Polansky’s foreword to Tomás Ó Cárthaigh’s Book Writings in Rhyme (2006): “A New York editor once told me one of
the pitfalls of editing a literary journal is that out of the poets and writers
you
meet, 99 per cent of them spend 99 percent of their time whining about
their love lives; eventually, the sensitivities are blunted until you
reach the point where you pull the covers over your head at the slightest
hint of another human being’s pain. Thomas Carty is one
of the few poets who do not fall into this category. Apparently without
fear or apprehension
he takes
on the most difficult themes, the themes most poets are in capable
of handling: injustice, discrimination, genocide. Although I am not
a rhyming poet because I fear the search for a rhyme can compromise
the original thought or feeling, Carty bulldozes
ahead with his rhymes and makes them work without diluting the power
of his poetry. As any literary editor
will tell you, we need many more fearless poets like Thomas Carty.”
Introduction
Hannelore
Hinz
Tomás
Ó Cárthaigh, 13 Church Street, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, Ireland
