Foreword Table of Contents Preface The Jump - Paul Tylak Cut - Patrick Chapman Lifeguard - Drucilla Wall The Loan - Susan Lanigan Birthday Poem - Anthony Jones The Gardener - Stephen James Smith I sing of beauteous Dublin town - Emer Martin Only us - Jim Maguire The Full Experience - Kate Dempsey The Sounds of the River: A Lost Anthology - Peter Murphy While We Sleep - Dermot Bolger Love and Loss - Niall Wall Christmas 1947 Preliminary Design for a Universe Circling Spaceship - Oran Ryan Hamburg Woman's Song - Philip Casey Community Matters - Clare Scott The Seal's Fate - Eoin Colfer Facepainting - Erin Fornoff No rain in the desert - Simone Mansell-Broome The Wex Factor - Jackie Hayden Recycled - Paul Harris Autumn, in a time of Climate Change - Kevin Connelly The Impossible Lasagna - Dave Lordan Loose Haiku - Maeve O'Sullivan The Day Off - Billy Roche In the centre - Chris Ozzard Watermarks - Suzanne Power Mare Rubrum - Helena Mulkerns Lines Inspired by Flamenco Sketches - Tom Mooney Asylum - Margaret Hawkins you asked if the cold weather reminded me of home - Sarah Maria Griffin Mary's Bar - Dominic Williams Wobble - Paul O'Reilly The Need for Leadership - Ross Hattaway Crepuscular - Patrick Kehoe Danse Macabre - Annie Bell-Davies Finders, keepers - Maggie Breen A Derelict Site In An Imaginary Town - Eamonn Wall Revolutionaries - Waylon Gary White Deer Neurotic Girl - Westley Barnes END NOTES AUTHOR BIOS
Roll up, Roll up! Come to where a red lamp glimmers atop a black piano, lit at the beginning of each show to announce an evening of magic. The Cáca Milis Cabaret has been running as a “vaudevillian evening of the Arts” in Ireland's Wexford Arts Centre and further afield since it kicked off in in 2009. Adapting the old Music Hall format to present original work from contemporary musicians, poets, writers, songsters, mime and circus performers, film-makers, comedians and dancers, it has thrived – presenting around 400 artists thus far. To mark its five-year anniversary, a splendid anthology of writing and poetry is published by Tara Press – presenting a selection of work from the writers and poets who have participated in the Cáca Milis Cabaret down the years. The dazzling gamut of writing, from short fiction to poetry, humour, sci-fi musings and satire makes it an eclectic and entertaining read. The range of contributors also adds to its attraction, featuring both local and international, emerging and established contributors, from established Irish authors like Dermot Bolger, Eoin Colfer, Emer Martin or Peter Murphy, to emerging authors like Susan Lanigan and a first fiction piece from popular comedian, Paul Tylak. Finally, the fabulous introduction by internationally-renowned writer Patrick McCabe ("The Butcher Boy"), captures the impromptu spirit of the Cabaret – which the reader may consider worth a visit after finishing the tome! Thirty-nine works feature, from Irish, international, emerging and established contributors. The anthology is edited by Helena Mulkerns, who is also the Hostess and Founder of the Cabaret itself.
HELENA MULKERNS is a freelance writer and editor who has edited two literary anthologies Red Lamp Black Piano and Turbulence, and one book as an author in her own right, Ferenji, published by Doire Press in 2016. Her fiction has been broadly anthologised and she's worked as a journalist on both sides of the Atlantic and as a civilian peacekeeper in Africa and Afghanistan. She has a MA in English Literature and Publishing from NUIG, Ireland and runs new publishing collectives, 451 Editions and Tara Press. A second edition of Ferenji will be published in 2022. See more: www.HelenaMul.com