Am excited. So excited. My man Neil McCarthy will be back in Budapest next week. Okay, so technically he’s not my man, but I feel a strange affinity to this purveyor of words who reintroduced me to the joy that is poetry. Many moons ago, when Treehugger Dan’s was a pillar of the Budapest arts scene, I went to one of his gigs and sat, mesmerised, by the life he imbued in his poems. That was back, I think, in 2009 or 2010.

At the time, I was feeling a little homesick – not for Ireland but for her people. For that rich and wonderful way we have of telling stories. For the calculated casualness with which we choose our words. For the pictures we paint with our imagery and the tunes we create with our turns of phrase. Even in the innermost of our inner cities, poetry is on the move. We have a way about us and McCarthy is better than most.

He sat onstage, with his trademark flat cap turned backwards, looking every inch the fellah who sits in my local at home, sorting the world’s problems over a pint or three. And a little bit of me fell in love with him. I’m not usually given to such flights of fancy but that night, I wanted to take his words home. I cornered him outside over a smoke and asked if he had a CD – I had visions of listening to him each time that hankering for all things Irish hit me. He was thinking about it, he said, but in the meantime, he had a booklet that he could send me when he got back to Vienna. And he did.

Fast forward a few years to 2012 and that CD came to be. I sent copies to friends in the States and in Australia. And I nearly wore my own copy out. With three chapbooks to this name, Stopgap Grace (published by Salmon Poetry) is McCarthy’s first published collection; it’s a joy to read. He has a way of capturing the moment, the mundane, and making it memorable.

I expected them to tell me that my bacon
had come from a happy pig, one that had had a full life,
was corn fed and had free range, did yoga in the mornings,
played the cello, spoke Latin and learned
to salsa dance while visiting relatives in Cuba.

McCarthy is coming to Budapest next week and will be reading from this collection at Massolit Books and Café, Nagy Diófa utca 30, in the VIIth district, from 7pm on Thursday, 10th May. One not to be missed. Copies of the book will be on sale and I’m sure he can be talked into signing them, too.

One not to be missed. Get there early to get a seat. It’s a smallish venue.