Lawrence Koster, the apostle of printing (1981) - a note from minor Irish literary history... my poem sources, in 1981, was a Victorian book of essays....it seems that typically for me, my enthusiastic rendering of the Gods great adventure is misplaced. (reader, there was no internet then!) i now discover an alternate rendering of the origin of (Dutch) printing.... however, for the record, i won £250 for my poem and it established my writing vocation. heres what the Poetry Ireland editor said at the time: In this issue certain items require individual comment. Lawrence Koster: the Apostle of Printing is the entry which won Louis Hemmings the Padraic Colum Memorial Poetry Prize The winner, Louis Hemmings, has just published an intriguing little collection The Homecoming: Poems & Stories (1981), the first of the Samizdat Books, a series of occasional collections of contemporary writing with a definite non-aligned Christian base, from his own Samovar Press (£2.50 + Vat). The Stories are unabashedly autobiographical and confessional sketches in which the element of conversion or commitment to Christ is dominant. They might serve as the starting point for an unusual Autobiography when Mr Hemmings is very much older. (He is now twenty-five). The poems this reader finds refreshing, coming as they do from an Irish source: they are the voice of a poet unafraid to proclaim his commitment to evangelism wherever it manifests itself, be it in the cottage of the blind-and-deaf poet Jack Clemo, on an American university campus, or in the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. All so refreshing in a country where so many poets good, bad and indifferent, have been stuck on the horns of the private faith-institutional church dilemma. Should Mr Hemmings keep his Faith he will become either an important religious poet, or, just as likely, a manic ranter - John Jordan
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 14:34:03 +0000
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