Kilkenny County Council's Arts Office is delighted to announce the launch of the third edition of Rhyme Rag, a poetry publication featuring the work of young Kilkenny writers. 264 poems by 169 writers were submitted for inclusion in edition 3 of the Rhyme Rag making the editors decision a good read but a difficult choice. 23 poems from young people aged between 12 and 21 years who have little or no previous writing experience were selected in this year's publication.

This years Rhyme Rag will once again take the form of a comic book, containing a poem per page. The illustration of the comic was undertaken by artist Ale Mercado and this year's editor was John W. Sexton. John is a poet, short story writer, dramatist, children's novelist, radio scriptwriter and broadcaster. He is the author of three collections of poetry, 'The Prince's Brief Career' (1995), 'Shadows Bloom / Scáthanna Faoi Bhláth' (2004), a book of haiku with translations into Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock, and most recently 'Vortex' (2005). He also created and wrote 'The Ivory Tower' for RTE radio, which ran to over one hundred half-hour episodes. His novels based on this series, 'The Johnny Coffin Diaries' and 'Johnny Coffin School-Dazed' are both published by The O'Brien Press, and have been translated into Italian and Serbian. He has also recorded an album with legendary Stranglers frontman Hugh Cornwell, entitled 'Sons Of Shiva'. He has been nominated for The Hennessy Literary Award and is currently Fiction Editor for The Cork Literary Review. He won this year's Listowel Poetry Prize for best single poem and has just recently been awarded a Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry for 2007.
John W. Sexton on Rhyme Rag
All writers are born with the same start: a writer's intuitive gifts, willed to them in the womb. But that intuitive power must be developed. Over it the writer should essentially learn to place the clothing of structure and style. Before that can happen, however, a writer's gifts must be fostered, and the first fostering for most of us is in the school classroom and the home. I say this for I wish to begin by stating that it was evident to me as I read through the many submissions of poetry for this edition of the Rhyme Rag, that the young writers of Kilkenny have been well fostered indeed. It is in the home and in the school that our poets seek their first encouragement, and it is only right that that encouragement is there to be had.

The second place that writers turn to is the avenue of publication, but for young writers these avenues are not always available. It is a blessing on everyone in the Kilkenny Arts Office that the young poets in this county have a good home for their work. Long may this wonderful publication exist.

A poet's range must be wide, and also, at times, contradictory. There are occasions when poetry must be serene, contemplative and pure; and there are other occasions when poetry should be wild, unstable, even dangerous. It is said in some quarters that a poet's concerns should be able to encompass the three Bs. The three Bs in question are: Beauty, Blaggarding and Bile. Open this book and you will find examples of all three. On some pages the poetry is calm, retrospective, poignant, and on other pages it is skitting, mad, utterly mental, at times even sinister. And that, with poetry, is exactly as it should be.

Expect no less in these pages, and enjoy this marvellous collection of writing from Kilkenny's young poets.

Ale Mercado's response to the Rhyme Rag and his involvement in it is extremely positive and he says 'it's a great honour to be involved in the Rhyme Rag. It has grown a lot in its short existence. I can clearly remember the first meeting with Mary Butler and how enthusiastic she was about providing young local poets with a way of seeing their work published. The first Rhyme Rag consisted of 16 poems of 50 submitted... We are around the 550 submissions now. Three years later.
And every poem is so special, so suggestive, so full of life that I am always afraid I am not going to do justice to the words. Illustration is like that. It is the balance between literal interpretation of words and the intervention of the illustrator. The images have to be able to invite the reader into exploring the text, and play with it at the same time, disguise, trick, surprise... but always keep in the background. The important things here are the poems. Without them there is no Rhyme Rag.

Every illustration has a life of its own, generated by the poem, the images it suggests and the mood it transmit. Producing them is not always an easy task.

I've tried to let the words dictate everything in the execution of the illustration (within my limitations) and I've suffered, been in love, felt anger... with each one of them. Because that's what the Rhyme Rag is, a beautiful compilation of pieces of people's lives and human emotion.
Resuming, there is a lot of talent out there. Well done to all the authors
I'd like to express my gratitude to the Arts Office and in particular to Mary Butler for allowing me participate in such a brilliant project.
Can't wait to start preparing next year's one.

The launch of the Rhyme Rag will take place at No. 72, John Street on Wednesday 28th November 2007 at 5pm.

Series Director: Mary Butler
Series Coordinators: Niamh Finn and Emma King
Editor: John W. Sexton
Graphic Design: Alé Mercado

View Rhyme Rag Blog: http://rhymerag.blogspot.com/