On the Town: A pair of prolific poets and publishing legends, Leland Bardwell and Desmond O'Grady, had a joint launch in Dublin on Wednesday night.
"They have both had a long service to poetry," said Joseph Woods, director of Poetry Ireland. Bardwell published her first collection in 1970, while O'Grady's first collection came out in the 1950s.
O'Grady has had a long career as a poet, academic and translator of poetry from Greek, Arabic and Welsh. He has also written about his friendship with great artists such as Samuel Beckett, Ezra Pound and film-maker Federico Fellini, in whose film, La Dolce Vita, he has a role playing himself.
Bardwell, who is also a novelist and a playwright, "is witty and tricky but she's the real deal. There's a very serious heart to the work", according to Pat Boran, of Dedalus Press, which has published the two poets. Her work is "by turns light and playful, dark and troubling". O'Grady's voice is, he said, "engaged, passionate, learned".
The two poets arrived at Damer Hall on St Stephen's Green for their shared launch, following their attendance at the 23rd general assembly of Aosdána at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. A number of fellow poets, writers and artists came along to celebrate and salute the two writers.
These included artists Brian Maguire, Camille Souter, Alice Maher and Cecily Brennan; poets Theo Dorgan, Paula Meehan, Anne Le Marquand Hartigan, Tony Curtis, Gerard Smyth, Michael O'Loughlin; and opera singer Judith Mok, whose first English novel will be published later this year.
Other writers at the launch included Evelyn Conlon, Dermot Healy and Brian Lynch, whose novel, The Winner of Sorrow, is currently shortlisted for the Hughes & Hughes Novel of the Year Award. Bardwell's son, Nicholas McLachlan, director of Dingle Writing Courses, was there too.
On My Way, by Desmond O'Grady, and The Noise of Masonry Settling, by Leland Bardwell, are published by Dedalus Press