2019
2018/2019
As the website hasn't been updated for a long time and it's December, Eileen is doing her own version of the 12 days of Christmas by choosing 12 poetry successes among many to mention.
Thank you if you have stopped by to take a look, it's very much appreciated.
Eileen is grateful to the editors and poetry magazines that have supported and published her work.
Thanks to:
Indigo Dreams Publishing, Eileen was extremely pleased to be voted into 3rd place in the Poet of The Year Annual Reach Poetry Awards for the year 2018.
On a number of occasions throughout 2018-2019 Eileen had poems published in Reach Poetry and had some of these poems voted into the top 3 by the readers of the mag and received a small cheque for each of these wins. The only poetry magazine in the UK that offers 3 poets cash prizes every month according to the votes of the readers. Visit the Indigo Dreams website and see what they do, here is
my page created by editor Ronnie Goodyer
Had a poem chosen for the amazing anthology For The Silent, published by Indigo Dreams, aiding the work of The League Against Cruel Sports.
Hedgehog Poetry Press, Eileen was delighted to win the The 1st Annual Cupid's Arrow Poetry Competition for her love poem What do we know of Time. For this she received prize money and 500 poetry art cards containing the poem.
Thrilled to have her poem Under A Budding Trees Moon become a Fauxlaroid after winning a challenge from Hedgehog Poetry Press and voted for by readers.
Honoured to have the opportunity to interview the wonderful and much-loved poet Brian Patten for the magazine Arfur published by Hedgehog Poetry Press.
Happy to be included in the competition winners' anthology The Road to Clevedon Pier.
A portrait poem will appear in an anthology of portrait poems to be published in 2020.
Thrilled to have 2 photographs and a poem chosen for The Hedgehog Poetry Press 2020 calendar.
Honoured to announce this from award winning composer Dr Mark Keane's website "recent compositions for mixed voice choirs include the setting of Eileen Carney Hulme's poem Belonging."
This is published by CailÃno Music Publishers in Ireland. Mark is a music graduate of Trinity College Dublin and the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama and is Organist and Director of Music at Tuam Cathedral, Co Galway, and Head of Music at Galway Community College.
Eileen was delighted to be the first poet published on the new and very lovely poetry magazine website The Beach Hut with her poem How safe the distance.
Finally, on a happy poetry note to end 2019 Eileen's poem This, my once hometown will be one of eight poems to be published in 2020 by Hedgehog Poetry Press on the theme of My hometown in winter
2017
December
As the year draws slowly to an end Eileen is grateful for another successful and happy year of poetry with a flurry of exciting moments during the last few months.
Some recent highlights include -
Winning The Brian Nisbet Poetry Award for the second time.
Being awarded 3rd place in the Annual Poetry Space International Poetry Competition judged by Mike Di Placido and also having another poem commended in the same competition.
Winning the local Elgin Writer's poetry competition and reading the judges' comments on the poem, a short extract 'We all really liked this poem. The theme of displacement comes through very strongly, and there's a timely subtext of political history repeating itself. The poet manages to say an impressive amount in a short time, there are several levels at work but crafted skilfully into 19 lines...'
Having a poem chosen by Rosie Jackson for The Poetry Space Autumn Showcase.
And also with a different editor, Lizzie Ballagher, having a poem chosen for The Poetry Space Winter Showcase.
A further wonderful review of The Stone Messenger by the distinguished poet and academic R V Bailey is awaiting publication, here is an extract from that comprehensive and outstanding review.
'This collection is the third from Eileen Carney Hulme, and as her readers I'm sure will agree it's a welcome addition to the earlier two volumes, and perhaps the best yet.
She hijacks weather, colour, seasons, scents and senses in the service of (usually) love and (in addition, in this collection) loss. Her words continue to create moments and sensations; to offer perspectives and questions with the admirable economy that characterises her writing.
Like so many of her poems Navigate by Moonlight (extract of poem quoted) illustrates the apparent simplicity that conceals the real complexity of her poems. As in 'Guilt is Quiet' she relies on the weight of everyday words, such as 'guilt' and 'last'. This kind of saying without saying leaves the reader's mind free to participate in the poem - which, though one of the joys of reading poetry - is far from easy for a poet to manage. ¬ She pares down her poems, relies on short (often monosyllabic) words that quietly lend her work surprising force. The otiose adjectives and adverbs that so often weigh down poems are largely absent from Carney Hulme's work; she's a writer whose work is disciplined, never self-indulgent.
One of her important themes in this new collection is the impossibility of arresting the processes of time. This has been a primary preoccupation of poets for centuries, but she invests it with a freshness that convinces: the future, with its questionable details, leans over her shoulder, but lightly, disturbingly, without fuss; she makes this well-trodden poetic preoccupation her own almost by stealth.
She manages her (usually) light-hearted landscape deftly, with carefully selected signals - and not too many of them. This, too, leaves the reader free to appropriate, to explore further. And it's clear that she trusts her reader: she knows it takes two to make a poem work.
Though serious, The Stone Messenger is by no means a gloomy collection; there's too much energy in the poems for that. This collection, like her others, covers a lot of human experience without fuss, enjoyably and efficiently. Though there is the same clarity, the same grateful accessibility, the same economical craftsmanship that readers have come to expect from Carney Hulme, The Stone Messenger speaks with a new authority and assurance, the product of a truly original and increasingly experienced talent.' R V Bailey
Eileen is delighted to finish the poetry year on a high with the recent announcement that her poem, Blue Hour, has been chosen as part of the UK Solstice Shorts Festival project, DUSK. It will be performed by actors in two locations, Ellon and Inverness and live-streamed on December 21st, as dusk falls across the country.
Poems will be published next year in various poetry magazines including the new and exciting Arfur from Hedgehog Press.
On that happy and positive note, warm wishes for 2018 to anyone who takes time to stop by the website.
July
Breaking News
Eileen is delighted to share in full a new review of her third poetry collection, The Stone Messenger, which has just been published in the superb poetry journal Envoi, almost two years after the book first hit the shelves.
The Stone Messenger is the third collection of poetry by Eileen Carney Hulme, a poet with a distinctive and unmistakable voice. The collection focuses on loss, particularly the loss of her parents, and in a broader arena, the impact of war in a series of poems set in Sarajevo. Underlying these themes, however, is a recurrent evocation of our relation to the physical world, which while temporary and subject to change offers also beauty, joy and the possibility of transformation. One of Hulme's strengths is her celebration of everyday life, our bitter sweet existence, in imagery, sometimes elemental, sometimes domestic, and deployed in leitmotifs throughout the collection: skies and sea, bones and buttons, coffee and conversation, clouds and the colour blue.
Running through her work too, and perhaps easily overlooked, is a gentle humour which offsets some of the difficult aspects of life which she does not shrink from addressing. An example of this is to be found in Closer than Breathing, relating a chance encounter with a man on the bus to Findhorn speaking of where eternity is to be found and another is the iteration of 'dobro' in Scotland to Sarajevo:
...I know little
of the language, I know dobro
means good, a useful word ...
the weather is dobro
the food is dobro
the people are dobro
Overall, the blending of the sensuous aspects of life with an elegiac awareness is subtly and poignantly realised:
Today I walk
the Findhorn Road,
word-ghosts trip me up
cloud-fall trails
like an afterlife
this is the last road ...I walk. (Things I Never Said)
She writes with enviable clarity and directness. Sometimes it is the ordinary word that suffices without further need for embellishment. To write with apparent simplicity, paradoxically, requires a high degree of technical skill and this she has. She can be arresting and eminently quotable, as in this aphorism which encapsulates the Stone Messenger to a large degree:
'Nothing/prepares you for/not letting go.' What is evident in all her work, and what further reinforces her skill in crafting poems, is a pronounced lyrical quality which goes further than speech. Many of the poems gathered here are closer to song in effect and logic. I think this is why Hulme's poems have such a strong emotional resonance. This lyric impulse arises again and again in the collection:
My father's heart
cannot be found.
Its shadow can be seen
in the eyes of startled trout...
My father's heart cannot be found
I hold it lightly in my palm. (Leaving the Funeral Home in Enniskillen)
In this way, Hulme's work is a constant pleasure for eye and ear, a lyrical poet in the most fundamental sense of the term
Reviewed by David Mark Williams, more info here.
June
A message from Eileen
To anyone who stops by for a look around the website, I thank you most sincerely.
2017 is turning into a year of reflection rather than action. Poetry continues in small ways, reading, writing, publication in poetry magazines, the odd workshop but a stepping back from readings. This in part has come about due to a lack of reading opportunities in the local and surrounding areas. It has long been discussed by me and fellow poets that it is difficult to organise regular readings in a relatively rural area due to a lack of venues keen to support poetry and also the sense of constantly relying on a small number of poetry enthusiasts to attend such events. After many years of successfully working hard to secure opportunities for myself and others to connect and read work within reasonable travelling distance I am taking a little sabbatical and allowing poetry to take me where it pleases.
Please do take the opportunity to have a look around the website where I have shared 10 years of news and successes. You can also find information about my books and read some wonderful reviews and a selection of my poems.
Sending good wishes out to all
Eileen
2016
December
It is wonderful to end the poetry year with some good news and Eileen received a cheque for 2nd place in the monthly poetry vote for the top 3 poems in the only UK monthly printed poetry magazine, Reach Poetry, with her poem The Night Sky is a Shadow. You can find info about the magazine here
She was also thrilled to have a poem accepted for the next edition (2017) of another excellent poetry magazine The Interpreters House which receives around 3,000 submissions per year for its 3 editions.
More info here.
November
Eileen was delighted to take part in the Poetry Showcase as part of The Ness Book Fest. A write up can be found here.
September
Eileen was the winner of The Brian Nisbet Poetry Award, a new competition set up by North East Writers, Scotland, in memory of Brian who died in 2015 aged 56 of the neurological disorder multiple system atrophy and here is a link for anyone interested in further reading about him.
The theme of the competition was Dreams and the judges stated 1st prize Not everything happens in the waking world (This poem was particularly good at every level. Really stood out and stands reading again and again.)
Eileen also won 3rd prize in the Scottish Association of Writers Solstice Competition with her poem While She Was Out. The judge stated 'The poem is an object lesson in how to write with real force about deep emotion through focussing on seemingly peripheral details.'
Eileen attended and read at The Poetry Scotland, Callander Poetry Festival hosted by editor, publisher and poet Sally Evans. A total of 80 poets from the UK and beyond took part over three days and many editors and poetry publishers were also in attendance.
Eileen was specially invited to read at the event Late Summer Wine in Berryhillock near Cullen, North East Scotland, which raises money for charity by providing tasting of wines produced by The Upper Room Country Wines, food is provided as well as music by local musicians. This is the first year a poet has been invited and it proved hugely successful and many books were happily signed and a total of £365 was raised by those attending for Clic Sargent.
Also in September Eileen had five poems published in the poetry magazine Sarasvati, one reader and fellow poet wrote 'It is always a joy to read Eileen Carney Hulme's work, I feel in tune with the way she writes.'
June
Eileen was delighted to read at an event in Glasgow as part of The West End Festival where
six prize-winning Scottish poets teamed up to present an afternoon of striking and original poetry.
Andy Allan, A C Clarke, Magi Gibson, Eileen Carney Hulme, David Mark Williams and Robin Lindsay Wilson read from their recent collections.
Eileen also read at Bards in the Bookshop with fellow Indigo Dreams Poet, Andy Allan, in the beautiful Nairn bookshop. It was a full house with a Q&A session in the middle and the feedback from this reading was wonderful.
Eileen had a poem published in Raum, a Glasgow based poetry magazine, and in Reach Poetry.
April
Eileen was delighted to see her poem Mrs Bavelaw's Bothy appear in Northwords Now, you can download the magazine here.
And if you scroll down further on the current issue home page to Poetry Reviews by Charlie Gracie, you can read a very thoughtful and splendid review of Eileen's third collection The Stone Messenger.
Here is a snippet
Eileen Carney Hulme's collection The Stone Messenger (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2015) is sculpted, honed from experience.
Eileen also received this generous response to her collection from award winning poet Oz Hardwick, Professor of English at Leeds Trinity University –
Beyond the personal identification, though, I was impressed by the way you catch grief...impossible to describe, but pin sharp. Excellently sequenced too, it was really rewarding and gently touched the webs that connect shared experiences.
March
Eileen had a poem 'Being Six' published in Reach Poetry magazine described as powerful in its gentle and spare unsentimental language.
February
In February Eileen was pleased to be among five winners of a Valentine's Poetry Competition run by Poetry Space and the results and winning poems can be read
here.
January
Nice to start the year by reading the Annual Reach Poetry (monthly magazine) voting statistics for the year 2015 and most happy to announce Eileen was the winner of Poem of the Year for 'Navigate by Moonlight' in a year that was described by the editor Ronnie Goodyer a year of outstanding poems. Eileen also came 5th in the Poet of the Year category.
Poems accepted for magazines and readings booked will be detailed later in the year.
2015
December
Due to a variety of reasons the website has been rather neglected for a while so here is a little news summary since the publication of Eileen's 3rd collection The Stone Messenger in July 2015 til December 2015.
Eileen was Poet in Residence at The Nicholson Gallery in Forres for the month of July 2015, which involved her organising and leading workshops, a poetry surgery and readings by a total of 14 poets who attended an open mic session.
In August Eileen held a book launch for The Stone Messenger in the same venue with guest readers. An afternoon of terrific poetry, wine and many books happily signed and sold.
Also in August Eileen took part in The Nairn Book and Arts Festival. Findhorn textile artist Margaret Meldrum had over a period of time, initially inspired by hearing Eileen's poems about her regular trips to Sarajevo, created a body of textile art work inspired by some of Eileen's poems. The exhibition, including the poems, entitled Scotland to Sarajevo were on display in the United Reformed Church for the entire duration of the festival and Eileen gave a poetry reading on one of the evenings.
In November Eileen took part in a reading event in Inverness organised by The Federation of Writer's Scotland (who earlier in the year ran a poetry competition that Eileen won)and sponsored by The Scottish Book Trust for Book Week Scotland.
Eileen also had poems published in a variety of poetry magazines and on poetry websites including
The Stare's Nest, Ink Sweat &Tears, The Poet's Republic, Reach Poetry and in an anthology published by The Reading Room Skye.
July
Eileen is delighted to announce that her third poetry collection The Stone Messenger is now available to purchase. More info and extracts from the book available here.
June
Eileen is very happy to announce she was the winner of the Federation of Writers Scotland Easter Poetry Competition judged by Brian Whittingham poet, playwright, freelance editor, and lecturer
of creative writing at the City of Glasgow College -
First prize
Eileen Carney Hulme - Keepsake
Judge's comments:
I felt this was a well-crafted poem with some particularly evocative lines capturing the losing of a loved partner very succinctly and in a way that the reader can feel empathy with the narrative. Loved it!
March
Eileen's third poetry collection, The Stone Messenger, is now in the tender loving care of Indigo Dreams Publishing. More news as it happens. Also check back here for news of readings and information about Eileen's Poet in Residence coming up in July and a collaborative project with Findhorn textile artist, Margaret Meldrum, where artwork and poems will be exhibited as part of Nairn Book and Arts Festival.
One of the poems from the new collection, Navigate By Moonlight, which was published in the January edition of Reach Poetry magazine, was voted into 1st place in the monthly readers vote. There are three cash prizes each month for 1st, 2nd and 3rd placed poems.
Also this month Eileen was very pleased to be commended in The Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition, further information and the judges report can be found here.
January 2015
A very Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for reading in 2014.
January begins with the arrival of the latest edition of Reach Poetry containing the results of the Reach Poetry Annual Awards for the previous 12 monthly issues of 2014. Eileen is delighted to be named in the following categories:
2nd place in Poet of the Year.
Joint Winner of the highest number of appearances in the results box of poems voted for each month by subscribers to the magazine.
Also this month several poems have been accepted for publication in poetry magazines in 2015.
2014
November
A very exciting few months with readings and appearances in poetry magazines, plus a win in a poetry competition. Also part of the judging panel of a children's poetry competition.
Poems have appeared in Acumen, Ink Sweat and Tears and Reach Poetry.
October
In October, Eileen won the Scottish Association of Writers (SAW) Write up North poetry competition. The competition was part of an all-day event in Inverness Town House, which included a keynote speech by Bob Davidson of the very successful Sandstone Press and four workshops. The short story competition was judged by Kenneth Steven and the poetry judged by Chris Powici of Northwords Now. All entries were judged anonymously.
September
In September, as part of the Nairn Book and Arts Festival poetry event, Bards in the Bookshop, Eileen read for 30 minutes from her two published collections, and also read a couple of new poems from her forthcoming collection, The Stone Messenger, to be published by Indigo Dreams Publishing in 2015.
She was invited back to read in October as part of the monthly evening readings held in the book shop. The reading was followed by questions and discussion.
July
Over the past few months poems continued to be published as follows along with some small successes:
Poem 'Walking Through The Door' published in Feb edition of Reach Poetry wins 2nd place and £15 in readers' vote.
Poem 'Returning to where I've always been' published in April edition of RP.
Poem 'Following Your Footsteps' published April 29th on Colin Will's Poetry Open Mouse page.
Poem 'A Different Space' published in June edition of RP wins 3rd place in readers' vote and £10.
2 poems selected and published in Federation of Writers Scotland Anthology, poems 'Certainty' and 'From the Great Book of Distances'.
Poem 'At Low Tide' published in July edition of Poetry Cornwall.
Poem 'Thinking of my Mother as Lauren Bacall' highly commended in 50th Annual Craigmillar Festival Writing Comp, over 300 entries were received for this annual competition.
Also this month thrilled to be commended in the international competition Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition, results and judges report to be found here.
In September Eileen will be reading at Bards at the Bookshop as part of The Nairn Book and Arts Festival, details here
March
February and March have been very positive. Eileen's poem The Kindling was voted into the winners 'box' of Reach Poetry magazine and two other poems have been accepted for other poetry magazines.
Also this month Eileen is thrilled to have been Highly Commended in The Baker Prize.
Judges for the poetry competition were Chris Powici, poet and editor of
Northwords Now
and
Kevin MacNeil.
January
A very Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for reading in 2013.
January gets off to a good start with the arrival of the latest edition of Reach Poetry containing the results of the annual poetry voting awards for the previous 12 monthly issues of 2013. Eileen is delighted to be named in all three categories:
3rd place in Poet Of The Year.
5th place in Poem Of The Year.
and Joint Winner of the highest number of appearances in the results box of poems voted for each month by subscribers to the magazine.
2013
August
Eileen is delighted to have two poems in the excellent Envoi poetry journal. Also UKA authors online annual poetry competition results are announced and Eileen was awarded 2nd place for her poem After Rain, she has been a supporter of UKA since 2003.
Finally the results of the Poetry Space International Competition have been announced with the top twenty poems chosen by judge Martyn Crucefix to be published in an anthology and Eileen is thrilled to be on the list of chosen poems. There is a full list and judges report
here.
July
A very productive and exciting few months with another first prize in the reader's vote for best poem 'What Waves Say' in the April edition of Reach Poetry, a monthly poetry magazine published by Indigo Dreams Publishing Ltd. Also in April Eileen had a poem commended in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry & Short Story Competition.
In May Galway's Tribal Chamber Choir performed Eileen's poem 'Belonging' at the spectacular Cork International Choral Festival. Also in May Eileen was among the winners named in the results of The Dunbar Literary Festival Poetry Competition.
On Wednesday 3rd July Eileen was delighted to have been awarded 1st prize (poetry) in the Edinburgh based 49th Annual Craigmillar Festival Creative Writing Competition and received a lovely trophy and book as the winner.
March
Eileen is thrilled to announce that
Mark Keane, head of music at Galway Community College and musical director of multi-award winning choral ensemble Tribal Chamber Choir has completed the score for EileenÂ’s poem
Belonging from her first poetry collection. Mark first contacted Eileen last year with a request to set the poem to music. The choir are now rehearsing the piece and Eileen has received a copy of the musical score with an invitation to attend the premiere performance at Cork City Hall in May.
On Sunday March 3rd Eileen was present at the open day at The Nicholson Gallery in Forres to celebrate a collaboration with artist Philippa Hain that has resulted in two of Eileen's poems being creatively transcribed on to wall/beam space in the gallery as a permanent feature. This is an on-going project and more poems will be added later this year. There has been enormous praise from visitors to the gallery delighted to find not only art but poetry on the walls of the gallery.
Eileen's poem
Heidelberg Dec 31st won first prize in the reader's vote of best poem for the January edition Reach Poetry, a monthly poetry magazine published by Indigo Dreams Publishing Ltd.
2012
December
After Eileen's very successful poetry reading in October 'Poetry in the Gallery' she was asked by the Gallery owner if she would be interested in having some of her poems written on wall space in the Gallery as a permanent feature. A wonderful local artist has come on board the project and the first of the poems is being worked on now. More news about this later.
As mentioned earlier Eileen had two poems included in the international literary journal Orizont Literar Contemporan. This exceptional journal arrived by post and contained a great selection of poems, prose and essays from many countries. Eileen was thrilled to find on the journal's blogspot that one of her poems from this edition was featured on the blog and translated into Romanian and Spanish. To read these beautiful translations and the original poem please go here and scroll down.
November
Review of Poetry In The Gallery.
Eileen was recently awarded an Arts Coucil grant for a reading in a local Art Gallery. The evening proved to be a huge success and the following review was received after the event-
'It was a lovely evening wasn't it?' said the woman next to me, and indeed it had been. The Nicholson Gallery, hosting the event, had provided us with the perfect relaxed, informal ambience, comfortable chairs and a blazing fire, in which to listen to our local poet Eileen Carney Hulme read works from her two published collections, along with some poems that IÂ’m sure will be included in the next one.
Eileen's poetry is deceptively simple, it slips easily into the mind of the listener, images of cut-glass clarity painting backdrops of skies, seas, dunes, cafés, rain, or simple interiors, against which the events play out, moments of pleasure shared, sadness, joy, love and loss, sometimes personal to the poet but also universal, recognisable to all listeners, evoking more than one laugh and one tear in her audience. She never lays a brush-stroke too many, never adds superfluous ornamentation.
I hope there will be more evenings like this.
Carol Argyris (reviewer)
September
It has just been announced that Eileen is joint winner of Reach Poetry's Fibonacci competition. Judges comment on winning poems 'strong images flowed with the construction beautifully created.' The Fibonacci poem is a poetry form based on the structure of the Fibonacci number sequence.
A number of poems have been published in poetry magazines- Reach Poetry, Poetry Cornwall, The Dawntreader and Aspire. Aspire/Partners Annual Open Poetry Competition results have just been published and Eileen is delighted to announce she was one of the runners up with her poem 'Mashing Turnips In India'.
Also announced Eileen is a runner up in Thynks Publications Peace and Love Poetry Competition, with two poems 'As Nature Intended' and 'It Comes Down To This' successful in this category.
Eileen was invited to submit work to Orizont Literar Contemporan (Contemporary Literary Horizon), an international journal of literature and culture, based in Bucharest, Romania. The next issue will offer a "flavour" of contemporary Scottish poetry to its readership. She is pleased to announce two of her poems have been chosen to appear in this upcoming issue.
Eileen attended and read at Poetry Scotland's annual festival held in Callander. This is a friendly, inclusive and hugely popular event organised each year by poet and editor Sally Evans and is attended by poets and publishers from all over the UK. For more information please visit The Poetry Scotland website.
Eileen has been awarded an Arts Council grant and this has enabled her to organise a reading 'Poetry In The Gallery'. For more information visit Northings a website devoted to Arts and Culture in the Highlands and Islands.
May
Eileen has had a poem Sorcery published in The Dawntreader a poetry magazine with themes of mystic, myth, spirituality and love. She was once again awarded 2nd place in the Reach Poetry monthly competition with the poem Thoughts of Spring.
Eileen is delighted to announce that one of her poems Belonging from her first collection is to be set to music by a multi talented musician and music graduate from Trinity College Dublin, now based in Galway, and will be performed by his award winning choir. Much more detailed information and news on this later.
February
An interesting and exciting month of poems and reviews. After an Indian Summer is published in the February edition of Reach Poetry published by Indigo Dreams Press and A Summer Thursday is published in Poetry Cornwall.
Two more new poems appear in Envoi poetry magazine published by Cinnamon Press- The Way of Tea and Looking at Jane Morris. All three magazines are beautifully produced and edited. They all have a web presence so please check out the wealth of information and publishing opportunities.
Also in this current edition of Envoi there is a lengthy and remarkable review of EileenÂ’s poetry collection by literary critic and poet R V Bailey. Here is a snippet-
This is Hulme's second collection. Her first, Stroking the Air, was published in 2005, and the strongly individual preoccupations that characterised that collection are reassuringly to be found in the sixty-odd poems of The Space Between Rain.
As the title suggests, there are spaces of all kinds here: absences, times, the curious gaps in relationships, as well as the more elusive reticulations of daily experience are all suggested here... Her poems are stirring, searching, memorable... sharpness, economy, exactness is what Hulme is so good at ...
Hulme has her own distinct voice...a genuine and individual voice, it is as present and as recognisable in The Space Between Rain as it was, five years ago, in Stroking The Air.
January
A review you might have missed in Poetry Cornwall.
Les Merton writes-
The Space Between Rain, a distinctive collection from a poet whose voice gathers momentum from observation and imagination.
Â…her tiny feet trail a rainbow
four women watch, whisper of
the space between rain.
The closing lines of the title poem The Space Between Rain opens eyes and minds to a world that is not only poetic but memorable enough to revisit.
January gets off to a good start with renewed interest in Eileen's second collection The Space Between Rain, more news on this later.
Meanwhile Eileen's poem Turning the Year which was published in the December issue of Reach Poetry magazine was voted into 2nd place in the monthly competition.
Another poem was published in Aspire poetry magazine, a further two poems were accepted for publication in Envoi poetry magazine and a selection of other poems have been accepted and will be published in various poetry magazines in 2012.
2011
December
Purple Patch Poetry Magazine no 130 contains the annual Small Press Best of 2011 lists and Eileen is once again in the category UK Best Small Press Poets of the Year.
Gratitude to editor Geoff Stevens for all his hard work and hours of reading.
Sometimes poetry editors just surprise and in a good way. The wonderful and fun Krax magazine with its hugely talented editor and thoroughly nice guy Andy Robson will not be found on the internet, oh no! Edition 48 thudded on to the mat with its 100 reviews section... yes that is 100 and in among those was a review for Eileen's collection The Space Between Rain.
Snippet... 'Always an air of trepidation about reading a second collection that follows one that was light dreamy and a delightful souffle with only the naivety taken out but fear not because...The Space Between Rain looks perfect, it reads perfect...don't argue just get a copy' Andy Robson poet, editor, reviewer.
September
Eileen had 5 poems published in Sarasvati poetry magazine edition 15 and in the edition that followed poet and retired English professor Robert K Johnson wrote of the poems 'I thought the whole 5 poems by Eileen Carney Hulme offered winner after winner. Fine work. Completely gripping...'
Eileen also had three poems published in a new and exciting poetry magazine Drey published by Red Squirrel Press and edited by the excellent poet Kevin Cadwallander. For more info visit Drey issue 2: Random.
Poetry competition results just in and Eileen is one of the runners up in Partners/Aspire poetry magazineÂ’s annual poetry competition.
March
Eileen entered her first American poetry contest and the results have been published and are very pleasing, read about it here.
Other news
Eileen had poems published this month in Poetry Cornwall and Reach Poetry and she has also had poems accepted for a new and exciting poetry magazine, more about this soon.
The year begins with lots of positive poetry news including-
Soul Feathers anthology to help raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support is now available and details can be found here- this is a great opportunity to read amazing work by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, Sharon Olds, Gillian Clarke, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen to name a few. It is a great honour to have a poem in this book please support it if you can and help raise money for this cause.
The wonderful website The Poetry Kit which is full of information for poets has a feature 'Caught in the Net' which each month features one or two poets and a selection of their poems. This month Eileen is the featured poet (CITN 74) do check it out here.
In the January edition of Reach Poetry, Eileen was listed as one of the poets with the highest accumulative points achieved over the year 2010 from the votes cast each month for favourites poems in the magazine..
2010
As the year draws to a close it is lovely to reflect on all the support and wonderful comments about my 2nd poetry collection 'The Space Between Rain' that have either been posted, emailed or generously given after readings. Thanks to everyone and may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very warm and happy festive time. ~ Eileen
Nov/Dec
Recently The IDP Annual Poetry Award Competition results were announced and Eileen's poem 'While You Were Out' made the final shortlist of five and was Highly Commended.
Eileen has already had a number of poems accepted for publication in poetry magazines in 2011 and is very proud to announce she will have a poem in the anthology 'Soul Feathers' which will be helping to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. Some other poets in this book include Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy, Sharon Olds and Maya Angelou. Further information can be found
here.
October
The Purple Patch Small Press PoetryAwards have been announced and Eileen came 12th in the Best UK Small Press Poets category and her 2nd collection The Space Between Rain made it into 20th place in the Best Collections category. Her work also featured in a number of magazines and anthologies that were also awarded places in their categories.
June
The Nairn Book and Arts Festival is fast becoming one of the biggest events in the North East and this year featured, on the Tuesday evening, the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
Earlier on the same day Eileen gave a reading at the Little Theatre with fellow poet and writer Donald Macarthur Ker. This event was very well attended and many books were happily signed. The following (extract) was received after the event.
Eileen Carney Hulme, has just had her second book of poetry published (and not by herself - by a proper publisher, quite a feat these days!) 'The Space Between Rain'...it's quite amazing to me how much Eileen's poems move, excite and lift my spirits...full of the northern skies, the special light of the Scottish coastal plains, of beautiful imagery that stays with me as surely as any painting. They also have what seems to be termed by the critics as 'musicality' (surely a newly-minted word?) Even when the tone is sad (and she inevitably speaks of love and loss and death) they are never maudlin or depressing. Short, compact, close-grained, they are each a moment of heightened consciousness.
Carol Argyris- reviewer, former second-hand and antiquarian bookseller.
...like an artist with a bulging palette she makes full use of colour, sound, texture and shades of light and dark. Yet every word is chosen carefully for its impact. There are no superfluous words here. Throughout this collection, the poems draw on startling and unexpected imagery...This is an exciting collection from an accomplished poet. Sue Sims
The full review from Susan Jane Sims, Poetry Space, is now available to read
here.
The poetry is under-stated, beautifully expressed and thoroughly honed. Tina Negus
2009
Eileen Carney Hulme was born in Edinburgh and is proud of her Scottish/Irish Celtic background. She is a qualified Aromatherapist and Reiki Master and lives in the beautiful north east of Scotland. Her work has been published widely in many small press magazines and three of her poems were chosen for inclusion in the all female anthology 'boho women peeling oranges'.
She has been placed or highly commended in a number of poetry competitions including Indigo Dreams Press, Partners, The Dawntreader Awards, City of Derby Short Story and Poetry Competition, Coffee House Poetry, Shelagh Nugent Awards and The Hastings International Poetry Competition. She has been shortlisted or won prizes in several online poetry workshops or competitions.
Her work was included in the CD/Anthology verse with voice project, Poetry off the Page.
Among a number of anthologies to include her work Eileen is delighted to be included in The Review of Contemporary Poetry launched at The Ledbury Festival, a beautiful book aimed at raising funds for The Stroke Association. This book has been recommended by Andrew Motion whose work is included in it as well as poems by Brian Patten, Al Alvarez and others.
She is the Profile Poet in the Spring 2009 edition of First Time poetry magazine and will feature in an upcoming interview in Krax to be published later this year.
In 2009 the poet and fiction writer Annie Clarkson read Eileen's first collection and here is a small extract from her review...
'Many of these are quite beautiful. 'Between', explores the relationship between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, without explicitly saying who the couple is in the poem. It explores facts/fictions of their relationship, how:
Vultures scavenged for the meat,
still they scrap over the bones
There is a wonderful poem about homeless people in a creative writing class: 'pavement souls/ graze on poetic grassland /and I pick up the crumbs.'
And the poems I was most drawn to, relate to family and a past life/past lives...'
2008
December
Since the publication of her first collection, the work of Eileen Carney Hulme has continued to be published regularly in a number of small press poetry magazines including Poetry Scotland, Envoi, Reach Poetry, Poetry Cornwall and The Dawntreader.
You can read more about Eileen and her work on the following website:
poetry pf.
If you would like to read about her latest poetry competition successes please visit the news pages here. Updates will appear here for news of her 2nd collection from bluechrome in 2009.
October
Over recent months Eileen has had poems published in a number of poetry magazines including Envoi, Poetry Scotland, Poetry Cornwall, Dawntreader and Reach. Eileen was also the Profile Poet in the current edition of First Time magazine which has been publishing poetry for 41 years under the love and guidance of poet,editor and founder of The Hastings International Poetry Festival, Josephine Austin who is a recipient of the Dorothy Tutin Award for Services to Poetry.
Eileen recently received 2nd place in the reader's vote for best poem in Reach Poetry magazine and in this years Indigo Dreams Press Poetry Awards 2008, she was awarded 2nd place for the poem Sun-Drenched and also had another poem commended in the same competition. The competition was judged this year its own award-winning poet and editor Ronnie Goodyer.
Look out for Eileen's second poetry collection in 2009 which is once again to be published by the excellent, innovative indie publisher Bluechrome of Bristol. Do check out there website for information on the latest book releases and much more. Exciting times ahead!
Meanwhile click on Eileen's updated poetry page.
February
Just released, slightly later than anticipated, the results of
The Indigo Dreams Poetry Awards 2007. Eileen had a total of three poems Highly Commended in this years competition- Yellow, Nat's Cafe and Sacred to Lovers. Sole adjudicator for the competition was Geoff Stevens, well known poet and editor of
Purple Patch Poetry Magazine one of the longest running poetry magazines in the country having been founded in 1976.
This is what he had to say...
high standard of entries, 12 poems stood out from the rest...At 6, 5, and 4, I placed three very good poems that appear to be by the same person (I was not given poet's names).Yellow is a vivid description of Camden Market characters, Nat's Cafe an old fashioned establishment with Dusty Springfield look-alikes, and Sacred To Lovers a neat piece about a visit to Glasgow.
Look out for more of Eileen's poems in small press magazines throughout 2008.
2007
To end 2007 or is it to begin 2008, one of Eileen's poems, Loss, taken from her collection Stroking The Air, appeared in the January 2008 edition of Writer's Forum magazine, as part of Sarah Willans poetry workshop 'How free is free verse?' The poem was used as an example of how to use line breaks skilfully...unfortunately due to copyright I cannot reproduce the article but here is a link to purchase the magazine - Writer's Forum.
Although the site has not been updated regularly this year, Eileen would like to reassure all readers that the poetry continues and watch this space for some exciting news in 2008.
Meanwhile Eileen has continued to be published in poetry magazines, anthologies and internet websites, she recently won the Reader's vote for best poem in Reach poetry magazine, for a sonnet entitled Lizard Dreams.
She was Highly Commended in The Hastings International Poetry Competition 2007 for the poem When the Moon Turns, she was placed 2nd in The Dawntreader Poetry Awards 2007 for the poem The Dream Path and she recently won a library poetry competition for her poem Goodbyes and was invited to read the winning poem at a very successful presentation evening where 48 people attended.
2006
August
In 2006 the work of Eileen Carney Hulme has been published in various small press poetry magazines, anthologies and internet poetry websites.
Her work has been Highly Commended in several poetry competitions, the most recent of these, being The Partners 21st Poetry Competition where she had two poems Highly Commended and also the City of Derby Short Story and Poetry Competition.
In June Eileen was invited back to take part once again in The Nairn Book and Arts Festival. She took to the stage with three other writers in front of a full house at The Little Theatre in Nairn.
This month a review of Eileen's book Stroking The Air appeared in the substantial annual review section of Krax magazine.
"A cheap price for a beautiful book of stark, sparse and direct poems. Students will pick up on Eileen's work and clamour for more books. Much like Richard Brautigan's mid-period poems, full of angst and unrequited loves and yet having that atmosphere of a tender moment that made it all worthwhile. As with Mr B. when you get to the end you'll just want to go back and read it all again. The powerful draw of the writing makes you need to 'be there'. For anyone whose favourite writer has deceased, retired or just "gone off" Eileen is your salvation for the future. Superb!"
September
A busy month. Eileen attended and read six poems at the Poetry Scotland event held in Callander. Around 40 poets read and each, in their own way, brought something unique and special to the weekend. To find out a little more about this event please go
here.
Eileen attended a local weekend seminar with talks and workshops to suit all tastes. More than sixty delegates attended on each day and Eileen took part in the poetry workshop led by award-winning poet Linda France.
The Indigo Dreams Press Poetry Awards 2006.
Results from the competition were announced to include three winning poems and three Honourable Mentions. Eileen received an Honourable Mention for the poem 'Seven' and Dublin poet Nessa OÂ’Mahony who judged the competition stated...
"...what a hard decision, in the end it came down to five or six. With the sheer quality, I must name three close contenders and give Honourable Mentions to ..."
The high quality lovingly produced Poetry Cornwall poetry magazine arrived containing Eileen's poem Sloop.
November
Eileen's poem 'Perception' was Highly Commended in this year's Hastings International Poetry Competition. More information can be found
here.
December
As 2006 draws to a close Eileen has had another success. This time in
The 5th Coffee House Poetry Competition when her poem 'The Bigger Picture' was selected as one of the seven runners up. This is what judge and editor Dr Jan Fortune-Wood, who is also now the new editor of
Envoi poetry magazine, had to say...
'We had nearly 500 poems entered this year and the strongest field ever to choose from. The long list was very long indeed, making the winners and runners up particularly difficult to select...the runners up all submitted very strong poems.
2005
January
Preview copies of Stroking The Air distributed.
Feb/March
Initial response, feedback and first reviews begin to appear, all wonderfully positive.
April
Poem "Moreton Island" chosen from over 1,000 submitted, to be included in The Review of Contemporary Poetry.
Interview and local press release for book.
May
Took part in a writer's evening as part of Nairn Book and Arts Festival. Short talk and read from book.
July
Reading and book signing at Borders Books Inverness.
Won runner up prize of £100 for poem "Flowers and Dust" in 20th Partners Annual Poetry Competition.
August
Writer of the Month on UKA International Writers Site.
2 poems voted for inclusion in Voices From The Web Anthology.
September
Read at the Poetry Scotland Festival.
Highly Commended for poem "The Ten Thousand Mile Smile" in The Shelagh Nugent Poetry Awards 2005.
October
Featured poet on the Michael James Treacy Poetry website.
November
Acceptances received for publication of work in 2006.
As part of Purple Patch Best Of Awards 2005, Stroking The Air is voted in 3rd place.
Highly Commended for the poem 'Geography' in the Hastings International Poetry Competition 2005.
Included in the competition winners list for the bluechrome poetry and fiction awards. Poem to be included in the 2006 anthology.
December
As the year closes an excellent review, by poet and reviewer RV Bailey, appeared in Envoi poetry magazine and also the renowned poet Brian Patten added his voice to the comments. Snippets from a number of reviews can be found
here.