97: Billy Ramsell channels Alberto Cenas

Send us Fan MailMost poets write under their given names – Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Denise Riley, Elizabeth Bishop. Some on the other hand use pseudonyms; there is no such person as Biddy Jenkinson, except in her poems; Pablo Neruda was born Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto in order not to offend his family. And of course there is Fernando Pessoa who wrote under a series of heteronymns – Alvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro the keeper of sheep, the artistocratic monarchist Ricardo Reis, and so on. Billy Ramsell’s new book Render from Banshee Press follows in this tradition, plunging us into Barcelona in the middle of the 20th century. The book purports to be the selected poems off one Alberto Cenas, lonely scion of a wealthy Catalan familyMy verses stretch and hesitate,scale their rickety trellises.My fruit comes rust-red, grudging.Billy came to Books Upstairs in Dublin earlier this summer to read from his work and talk to poet and critic Adam Wyeth about his complex portrait of a strange and sympathetic figure, a sort of Irish export to the poetry industry of Catalonia ….  This episode is supported by a Project Award from the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, 'Thou Shalt Not Carry' from The Hare's Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Logo designed by Freya Sirr.Support the show