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Kevin Higgins’ 'The Boy With No Face' poetry bestseller

category galway | arts and media | news report author Tuesday April 25, 2006 02:19author by poetry news

A Brief History History Of Those Who Made Their Point Politely And Then Went Home

Salmon Poetry has announced that Galway poet Kevin Higgins’ debut collection, The Boy With No Face, which was launched in February last year, was their best-selling book of 2005.

Salmon Poetry has announced that Galway poet Kevin Higgins’ debut collection, The Boy With No Face, which was launched in February last year, was their best-selling book of 2005. And in 2006 it has continued to sell well. Salmon Poetry now plans to reprint The Boy With No Face to meet continued demand from bookshops and internet sales.

The Boy With No Face was recently short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for a best first collection by an Irish poet. For more info see http://www.salmonpoetry.com/theboy.html

Kevin’s poem ‘A Brief History History Of Those Who Made Their Point Politely And Then Went Home’ was recently nominated as one of the ‘favourite poems of 2005’ by the UK-based website http://thepoem.co.uk

A Brief History of Those Who Made Their Point Politely
and Then Went Home – Kevin Higgins

On this day of tear-gas in Seoul
and windows broken at Dickins & Jones,
I can’t help wondering why a history
of those, who made their point politely
and then went home, has never been written.

Those who, in the heat of the moment,
never dislodged a policeman’s helmet,
never blocked the traffic or held the country to ransom.
Someone should ask them: “Was it all worth it?”

All those proud men and women, who never
had the National Guard sent in against them;
who left everything exactly as they found it,
without adding as much as a scratch to the paintwork;
who no-one bothered asking: “Are you or have you ever been?”
because we all knew damn well they never ever were.

For further details contact
Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare, Ireland
email: info@salmonpoetry.com | tel/fax: + 353 (0)65 7081941or e-mail: kphiggins@hotmail.com

Comments (2 of 2)

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author by Black Flag 100publication date Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:44author address author phone

Good to hear the news. I've admired Kevin's work over the years. His poetry has an edge that is desperately missing in a lot of other work that is about. ....

author by Hildapublication date Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:58author address author phone

Your face is dirty, your voice is loud,
Your hands outstretched from the begging crowd,
Yet your smile is more radiant than the rarest gem

You swear and you fight
Yet from your eyes shines the brightest light

The cast off rags and dirt encrusted bare feet
Cannot disguise your inborn human dignity

You are the street children of the third world, the homeless, the refugees, the alcos, battered and brusied, the world's poor,

To the rich who walk past you, with their noses upturned, you are nothing,
nothing, but scum to be scorned,

But to the God of the poor, you are more precious
more precious than the mountains of money the rich hoarde in their banks

More precious than property empires, power and prestige,
For to the God of the Poor, you are exalted.



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