Signage Play in the Dock

I've made a few signs to put around the Dock during the run of their exhibition, IMAGINED--Visions of Architecture. Here's one:

Poem Ten: Caution Staircases

Here are installation photos of the poem, "Caution Staircases". It's a visual and verbal poem, and I'm playing with the vast inventory of stock images available to sign makers everywhere and also with that slightly superior, cautionary tone that comes across in signage. It's as if whoever has written the sign is just a little fed up with how reckless we people out here in the real world can be.

Poem Ten: Caution Staircases (cannot be goosestepped up)

The next exhibition at the Dock (opens Friday, hope to see ya there!) is about architecture. Go to their website to see more details, but I will say that it's a really interesting mix of exhibitors and the overarching idea of the show is sound: clear and concise. Lacking gobbledygook. Ok, that's my plug for the show (Caoimhín you can send the cheque to me directly). When I heard they were dealing with architecture, I thought I'd focus a poem toward two things I'd been thinking about recently: staircases and signage.

So the poem is half words/half pictures--the words are short statements of fact in the register of signage. And the other half of the poem is a series of images from the wacky world of signage. Some are stock images and others are manipulated in good ol' Sign Maker program. I must say it was fun making a sign that visually represented the line "cannot be goosestepped up". Because you cannot goosestep up a staircase. I dare you to try. Wear steel-tipped shoes before trying, as I don't want any bruised toes on you, my dear reader.

Can You Lend A Hand, Dear Blog Reader ?

Hello there. I'm working on poem eleven, which is to do with John McGahern's Memoir. I'd begun it back in December, and it's a collage of things people have said to me about reading the book, or thinking about reading the book, or what they have heard about the book and so on. The poem will start high on the wall in the Dock, right below the clerestory windows and will read vertically down the wall and then fall onto the stairs.

But there's a missing piece, and I wonder if anyone out there can help me. Somewhere in the last year or so in all the press coverage about the book, I read that McGahern said something like this about writing it (this is rough memory at work here): "I sit down at the desk and when the tears start to flow, that's when I write." Something like that. Can you tell me where I read this?
Thanks. Alice

Street Dog of Boyle

I'd been having problems locating a street dog in Boyle to post for you here. It seemed they were all in hiding for a while. The good weather has brought them out, and here is one pooch hoofing it to the sales, I guess. Poem Seven, "Things I Didn't Know I Loved" back in February, mentions Boyle's dogs.