Ellen Dillon
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drnollid.bsky.social
Ellen Dillon
@drnollid.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.2K following 650 posts
bleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus
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drnollid.bsky.social
September 5, 2025 at 10:54 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
Delighted to be reading at Ó bhéal go béal in Cork next Monday. Poems from the new and newest books, featuring some Seán Ó'Ríordáin and some birds
September 2, 2025 at 10:10 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
It's syllabus time, and I'm reading Three Poems for the first time in too many years. Thank you John Ashbery
At this time of life whatever being there is is doing a lot of listening, as though to the feeling of the wind before it starts, and it slides down this anticipation of itself, already full-fledged, a lightning existence that has come into our own. The trees and the streets are there merely to divide it up, to prevent it from getting all over itself, from retreating into itself instead of logically unshuffling into this morning that had to be, of the day of temptation. It is with some playfulness that we actually sit down to the business of mastering the many pauses and the abrupt, sharp accretions of regular being in the clotted sphere of today's activities. As though this were just any old day. There is no need for setting out, to advertise one's destination. All the facts are here and it remains only to use them in the right combinations, but that building will be the size of today, the rooms habitable and leading into one another in a lasting sequence, eternal and of the greatest timeliness.
August 19, 2025 at 1:17 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
Found these four Ellens hiding in my copy of Simone Weil's factory diaries, pointing me to machinery-operating tips and the importance of not letting imaginary difficulties slow you down
Side view of a copy of Simone Weil's factory diaries in which the pages are being held open by a strip of passport photos of me wearing a green jacket and grey keffiyeh, from which two photos have been cut out
August 2, 2025 at 6:42 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
Christ, wouldn't you just walk into the sea?
Job ad: Social media online marketing officer Dublin City Council
July 29, 2025 at 10:45 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Theory of Water
A book, a letter, a document, a paper. When the colonizers came, they were always lost because they refused to live in the network of the living. The colonizers needed a book, a letter, a document, a compass, a paper, a policy, a law, an accounting, so that they could build fences and put up signs that said No Trespassing and Private Property.
July 26, 2025 at 10:52 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
For those homesick for the golden age of poetry reviews (i.e. mantrums over work YOU don't understand, couched in the coercive 'we' of school debate club) feast your eyes on this review of Amelia Rosselli's 'Variazioni Belliche' from 1965
Amelia Rosselli. Variazioni belliche. Mi- lano. Garzanti. 1964. 187 pages. 1,800 1. The first impression we receive from these poems is that they are not poems yet, but rather notes for possible poems, piled together at random and printed in the same form as they were first jotted down. Later we begin to think that they may represent a voluntary decomposition of rhythms, an exaggeration of some of the experiments made fifty years ago by Dino Campana. However, still later we notice in them a different kind of exaggera- tion, related to the cold philological curiosity of Pier Paolo Pasolini's prose: words drawn from all levels of Italian, both literate and illiterate, and from many different languages, not organized in a comprehensible pattern but rather set side by side in a sort of mad dance. The fact is that we are confronted with a sexual frenzy, which remains such because the author has not made any effort to give it an orderly appearance. It is a chaos of words which reflects an emotional chaos; and the author does not seem to be capable of the necessary detachment to master it. To prove it, we could quote from almost every page. And if poetry means precisely to bring ex- pressive order into chaos, we find it difficult to classify this volume as poetry. Had Amelia Rosselli's book been written during the age of Futurism, it could have been understood as an extreme experiment by one who sooner or later would have found a personal voice. But today we cannot justify that such a kind of experimentation has be- come part of the pre-history of contemporary poetry. The irony of all this is that Amelia Rosselli seems to have a poetic gift, however tenuous her vein may be. A few of her very brief compositions prove it. They are still somewhat raw and appear unfinished, but they do have an expressive suggestiveness of their own. Here is one of them: "L'alba a rintocchi cade / sulla mia testa ammalata / il difficile umore m'assale / verde come la paura." If she could be honest with herself and work with compositions of this sort, she would probably write something not only pleasant but of some artistic validity. Giovanni Cecchetti Tulane univers
July 13, 2025 at 12:16 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
"The issue in question ran to some prose masquerading as poems"
Brian Cox in Succession. Long-suffering face. Caption: I love you, but you are not serious people.
July 12, 2025 at 10:11 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
Good!
The commentariat think we're tired of Presidents with hearts and principles, showing once again that their fingers are on the pulse of a dead Ireland
Photo of Michael D Higgins in front of his portrait. Text beneath reads Diarmaid Ferriter: Has the public had enough of presidents like Michael D Higgins?
July 11, 2025 at 1:26 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
Fanny Howe, SoundEye 2014. My first one. She read a poem about the train from Limerick Junction that I read every time I get the train from Limerick Junction through 'mountains
floating in water'
Love to everyone whose heart is cracked a little wider today 💔

griffinpoetryprize.com/poem/the-mon...
July 10, 2025 at 7:03 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
Let's spend that interregnum fighting monsters!
Humans in the way--with free time and guillotines
Guillotine blade , ready to drop
July 9, 2025 at 9:58 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
How have we ended up in a world where robots doing our jobs is a bad thing instead of the realisation of a utopian dream?
Oh yeah, because anyone not contributing to the enrichment of the obscene billionaire gowl class has been deemed disposable.
Good job (that could have been done by robots)
Headline reading 'Futurist Adam Dorr on how robots will take our jobs: ‘We don’t have long to get ready – it’s going to be tumultuous' with image of robot playing chess
July 9, 2025 at 9:54 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
Oh This 🥹

Got to spend time with Maggie O'Sullivan in Cork this weekend at SoundEye. Can't tell ye how much I love and admire this woman ❤️
Two women (Maggie O'Sullivan and me) smiling with their arms around each others' shoulders. Maggie is wearing a floral shirt and light raincoat, I'm in a red Karl Marx t-shirt. Other poets can be glimpsed in the background--Mira Mattar, Aodán McCardle, Catherine Walsh.
July 7, 2025 at 3:49 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
SoundEye kicking of in shtyle in the shtepps at 12

soundeye.wordpress.com
Room like the one in the opening scene of Tár but with light pouring in from high windows
July 4, 2025 at 10:24 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
Tower Room 2
July 3, 2025 at 6:29 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
It's all happening in Cork this week!
Details of SoundEye schedule and venues up on the blog now

soundeye.wordpress.com
July 1, 2025 at 11:49 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
An infuriating read, this. Minister off on a solo-run, and nobody in the Department called to account for failing to act on 60(!!!) emails flagging the problem
“Unfortunately, the Minister decided not to wait for the outcome of the Niamh Brennan review. He judged me before those findings are available and against the clear advice of the Arts Council board. His actions have served to discredit the Arts Council and, in particular, my reputation. It is clear to me that he saw the opportunity for a scalp and I was a very easy target.” The IT project had “troubled origins”, she says, because “the senior expertise simply was never there to deliver it, and the oversight from the department and the OGCIO” – Office of the Government Chief Information Officer – “was never in place”. “This was one outlying project which failed, there’s no doubt. But it absolutely should not overshadow all the work the Arts Council does. And the Arts Council is by no means alone in enduring difficulties with such a project.”
June 28, 2025 at 8:20 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
My beloved @coderjerk.bsky.social was on my profile and apparently these are the similar accounts?? Not a lass nor a poet nor a poet-lass among them ⁉️
June 27, 2025 at 8:54 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
When a tax-exile currency speculator’s—sorry I mean ‘horse racing mogul/ greatest man Limerick ever produced’—white elephant ‘gift’ isn’t welcomed with the grovelling gratitude he’s used to.
June 27, 2025 at 7:40 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
Lads I'm genuinely astonished that this roomful of the same fucking guy could 'struggle to find a united voice' on Gaza or anything else.
A dozen white middle-aged men in dark blue suits sat around a table with their countries' flags in front of them so they don't get themselves mixed up. There is one (1) woman (whitle, middle-aged) sitting in the corner.
June 26, 2025 at 5:04 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
What actor’s expression in a movie will stay with you for the rest of your life?
Jim Carrey, sitting in the passenger seat of a van, waves his hand with an expression of the most sublime know-nothing self-assurance on his face while saying 'Harry, I took care of it.' We can see the back of Harry's (Jeff Daniels) shaggy blonde head, but not his face.
June 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
I really wish it was :(
Screenshot of an email from Academia asking if the publication 'Total cattle farm operators interviewed.' is mine
June 24, 2025 at 10:58 AM
drnollid.bsky.social
A phenomenal weekend of readings, conversations and performances, programmed by the mighty Danny Denton 🫡
June 22, 2025 at 9:40 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
Paschal Donohoe: "I note that you're proposing an action.
Can I interest you instead in another job lot of platitudes? 'the Government will move a motion today which calls out the appalling situation the Palestinian people are facing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
It is important to distinguish between what I accept to be an absolutely well-intentioned and thoughtful proposal of an action which I believe we would not be able to implement in the way the Opposition calls for, and the concrete actions the Government is taking. This is why the Government will move a motion today which calls out the appalling situation the Palestinian people are facing and highlights the work we are doing, and will continue to do, to make a difference and effect real change. The recognition by others of Ireland's position as an independent State eventually led to the establishment of a peaceful nation over a century ago. We believe that our recognition of Palestinian statehood will contribute to peace and to reconciliation ultimately but obviously there is a long journey ahead. The people of Gaza deserve peace, a peace that honours their legitimate aspirations to live with respect, justice, security and dignity, free from violence and the threat of violence. These are expectations that have been grievously harmed and not delivered to date. This is why we will work tirelessly with them to help achieve peace but I respectfully contend that the motion proposed today would not play a role in making this happen.
June 11, 2025 at 9:42 PM
drnollid.bsky.social
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Central Bank complicit in genocide
Corporate complicity implies that corporations may be ‘aiding’ or ‘abetting’ genocidal acts perpetrated by the State. International criminal law suggests that direct complicity requires intentional participation, but not necessarily an intention to do harm, only knowledge of foreseeable harmful effects. A corporation or individual businessperson who knowingly assists a State in violating customary international law, including the prohibition of committing genocide, may be complicit in such a violation. It is not required that the corporate accomplice desires that the principal offence is committed. As such, a corporation or corporate leader may be complicit in the commission of genocide where it decides to participate through assistance in the commission of the acts by the State of Israel and that assistance contributes to the commission of genocide. The corporate accomplice can be liable for contributing to genocidal acts even if the State of Israel, as primary perpetrator, is not found responsible.
June 11, 2025 at 8:17 AM