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“The Soul’s Friend for Writers,” Writers’ Forum, April 2005
Anam Cara – soul friend – is an Irish retreat for writers overlooking Coulagh Bay in West Cork . It’s a tranquil spot offer the opportunity for seclusion or the company of other artists. This year-round retreat is ideal for writers seeking anenvironment to complete or progress work.
You can take your meals on your own when you are working or with others. As a break from writing, you can go walking or hiking over beautiful terrain, swim in the river or ocean, fish in the lakes and bays or play golf in unparalleled surroundings.
As Maire Bradford wrote:
Anam Cara fires your imagination
Inspires your seeking soul.
From the safety of her stone circles
Your work takes flight.
According to Ireland on Sunday ( 29 February 2004 ) Anam Cara is one of its six best retreat destinations in Ireland .
All Muse, All the Time – Ireland ’s Beara Peninsula , Poets & Writers, March/April 2003
Billy Collins and workshop participants at a master class at Anam Cara in 2002
Anam Cara, a year-round artist's retreat, is set amid the rolling hills of southwest Cork ’s remote Beara Peninsula . Established in 1998 by Sue Booth-Forbes , a former communications director from Boston , Anam Cara accommodates five guests at a time. For writers accustomed to an urban landscape, the retreat’s five acres surrounded by farmlands that gently slope down to Coulagh Bay , will probably seem like a work of art in and of itself.
Anam Cara’s main purpose is to provide a sanctuary from everyday life for writers and artists. As director and host, Booth-Forbes views herself as a “supportive facilitator” who hopes to provide what writers and artists need to “slow down enough inside” to produce their best work. Each of the five guest rooms is furnished with a queen-sized bed, a desk and a comfortable chair with proper back support, plenty of electrical outlets (if you live outside Europe you should bring an electrical converter or two), shelves for books, drawers, closet space — and of course magnificent views. The four north-facing bedrooms overlook Coulagh Bay , while the one south-facing bedroom faces Mishkish, the local mountain, whose peak often disappears into a cloud of mist. One of the four sea view rooms has been remodelled to accommodate disabled guests.
Daily working hours are from 9:30 A.M. until 5:30 P.M. During this time, guests are expected to maintain a reasonable level of quiet so that others may work in peace. In addition to a private study and bedrooms, the house and the grounds offer many settings for creative idylls: the porch swing in the conservatory, the sunken living room, the window seat in the gallery room, the “island” near the cascading waterfall, the low wall beside the stone fountain, the bench beside the duck pond.
Mealtimes provide opportunities for residents to share ideas and socialize. After dinner, guests often linger to relax with a glass of wine, share work, or listen to music. Other times they head upstairs to the loft to watch a movie, selected from Anam Cara’s comprehensive collection of videotapes. Those who want an evening outing may take a walk to one of the local pubs to listen to traditional music and try step dancing.
Although computers may be used for word processing at Anam Cara, Internet access is somewhat limited. It is possible to check e-mail or work on the Internet from Anam Cara; however, at the present time there is a single phone line to be shared by all the guests. Those who wish to do extensive research online or who need to be in frequent e-mail contact with friends or colleagues at home have the option of using Beara Business Services in the nearby town of Castletownbere, a thriving fishing port with a population of about 1,000 roughly four kilometres away.
Most guests travel to Castletownbere for supplies and errands. But often a trip to town is ended with a walk along the dock or a visit over a pint served at a local pub.
If you want to take a break closer to Anam Cara itself, you can go for an easy walk down to the strand (beach). Along the way the peninsula’s natural world takes on its full colors in the form of magpies, peregrines, gulls, and finches, as well as wildflowers, including honeysuckle, cowslip, reddish-purple foxglove, lavender harebell, fushsia, and bright orange gorse. Or you can take a short work along the upper, main road to the village of Eyeries , less than a kilometre from the retreat. Amid the village’s carmine, blue, and yellow houses, you’ll find a petrol station and grocery store, three pubs, a Catholic church, and a Post Office. The townspeople there, as in Castletownbere, are friendly and helpful, especially if you mention that you are a guest at Anam Cara.
For those who wish to venture farther afield, the countryside offers relics from long ago. Up the main road north from Anam Cara, and past Eyeries, the Hag of Beara (Cailleach Beara in Irish), a stone about the size of Plymouth Rock, but craggier, sits on a low cliff, looking out to sea. Legend has it that, having been turned to stone by a local saint, she waits forever for her man to sail home. The Hag has become a kind of shrine and repository for griefs and hopes. Locals and tourists alike tuck stones, coins, and small trinkets into the rock’s nooks and crannies and make a wish or send up a prayer.
Farther down the road are the ruins of Kilcatherine, a church named for the saint who placed the curse on the Hag. Among the many headstones and statues in the churchyard is a four-foot-high, rough-hewn stone cross purported to be one of the oldest in Ireland . Still farther along stands the largest known ogham (pronounced o-am) stone. Like other standing stones of its kind, it may date back to the middle-to-late Bronze Age. Stone circles originated from the same tradition and time period as ogham stones. The Outer Ardgroom Stone Circle is just a few miles from Anam Cara. The original purpose of these formations is not known; however, many of the stones appear to have astrological and solar alignments. In addition to these ancient markers, 200-year-old former dwellings with walls made of flat stones fitted together can be found scattered along the road. Many of these buildings are roofless, while others now have bright orange tin roofs and are in use as storage sheds. On the Beara Peninsula , as in all of Ireland , the past continually informs the present.
As its residents will happily attest, Anam Cara, which is Irish for “Soul Friend,” lives up to its name.
Barbara J. McGrath is an assistant professor of English at College of the Southwest in Hobbs , New Mexico , Her poems and reviews have appeared in Nebraska Review, Passages North, Colorado Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Bloomsbury Review, and other publications.
“A Place and Time to Weave New Tales – A Writer Embarks on a Search for her Muse at a Writing Retreat and Finds Friends as well as Inspiration,” Special to The Christian Science Monitor, February 26, 2003
Anam Cara , Ireland – I knew I wasn’t in Ohio anymore when I walked out the door of the airport and smelled the pungent odor of peat fires and saw cars driving on the “wrong” side of the road. I had let the familiar cornfields and mooing cows for the land of 40 shades of green and Frank McCourt. Ireland .
This was a professional trip with a personal quest. I had come to the Emerald Isle to attend a writer’s retreat, with hopes of finding my writing voice, which had been drowned out by thumping car speakers, cellphones that don’t ring but squeak awful ditties, and questions from my offspring such as, “Why did you put onions in the mea tloaf?”
After 30 seconds of instruction from the rental car agent, I was given keys to my Ford Fiesta.
“Do you have a place I can practice driving?” I asked.
“No,” he answered. “Just watch the roundabouts.” Away I drove, chanting my mantra, “Stay on the left.”
I began to wonder if this trip was really a good idea. But after a nice night at a bed and breakfast, I felt more hopeful. Soon I was off and venturing down every back road I could find.
As recommended by Sue Booth-Forbes , the owner of the Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat where I had come to stay, I was taking a few days prior to my arrival to journey through Ireland . She had said that doing so would help eliminate a feeling while at the retreat that I really should be out seeing the country.
She was right.
When I arrived at Anam Cara, the writers who were in residence were heading out to the Bantry Fair. Having become a full-fledged Irish driver, I volunteered to drive.
By the time we had seen the world champion sheep shearer and watched future Riverdancers tapping their toes off, I had become “best friends” with a folk singer from England, a blues singer from Chicago, an actress from California, a writer from the U.S. Midwest, and another writer from London….And that was long before we performed West Side Story in Anam Cara’s living room.
At the retreat I was ensconced in a room with a spacious window that opened to a view that would be the envy of any writer, artist, or dreamer. Peaceful fields crawled down to Coulagh Bay .
A desk stood under the window. A queen-size bed was surrounded by bookshelves. That mea nt works such as Letters Home by Sylvia Plath, My Dream of You by Nuala O’Faolain, Paddy Indian by Cauvery Madhavan (written for the most part while in residence at Anam Cara), and After Rain by William Trevor were a finger’s reach away.
First thing each morning, Booth-Forbes walked to the heart of the retreat, the kitchen, and cooked breakfast for her charges. She’s a former Boston editor who, after a change in marital status, decided to follow her dream and move to Ireland to create an environment where writers and artists could come to find and hear their muse. She serves as part friend, part editor, part travel guide, and part midwife in each resident’s hoped-for creative rebirth.
She’s also an excellent cook. Throughout my two-week stay, Booth-Forbes made sure we started our days with omelets, French toast, and a mea n bowl of oat mea l with sultanas.
Then writers and artists filtered back to their rooms to get to work with their laptops or paintbrushes.
Some chose to work in the glass conservatory that overlooks the garden and the henhouse that’s home to “the ladies” who provide those golden-yolked eggs for the omelets.
Sometimes I walked down the path and the hill to sit and write by cascading waterfalls. Other times I cozied up in front of a peat fire, yellow legal pad in hand. Mostly, I used my rented laptop.
As first the sound of my fingers tapping on the keys was disconcerting. Freedom to think and dream – hard-fought goals – came abruptly, and it took a short time before I knew what to do with it. But soon creative thoughts took over. My words began standing solo on the page.
When I became tired of my myself and my thoughts, I strode out to the living room or took a walk down the road and taked to some cows. I found solace in their advice, which was very nonjudgmental and usually right on.
In the middle of the day we gathered in the kitchen. Most of us had worked ourselves up hearty apetites. Mainly, we were hungry to take a break from ourselves.
The first couple of days we discussed our work in general terms, but soon, we were reading and listening to one another’s works as we shared our literary dreams and doubts.
This was not a critique session, just a receptive audience, although if you asked for input, you received it. If we chose to, we talked about our lives, but we didn’t feel the need to try to impress our listeners. The camaraderie was as nourishing as the mea ls.
Afterward, seductive voices sometimes whispered temptingly, “Let’s take a nap.” Most of the time I resisted the impulse, but occasionally I gave in – telling myself that sleep and dreams are part of the creative process.
A couple of times I walked or drove to the small nearby village of Eyeries , awarded a Tidy Town designation. The Easter Bunny appears to have painted the houses, pubs, and storefronts in a variety of pastel colors.
One day, Booth-Forbes arranged for the actress/singer and me to go to the local high school and teach a couple of classes. I am sure I learned more than the students did.
If you have a car, you can drive about 4 ½ miles to Castletownbere, a fishing village where you can chat with fishermen while they sew their nets, sit at a picnic table outside Breen’s Lobster Bar and have a crab salad, or drive down to the strand, the Irish word for beach.
Around sevenish, Booth-Forbes served dinner in the dining room – soda bread, lamb stew, cabbage and corned beef were part of the fare during my stay along with the evenings of tacos or spaghetti.
Dinner conversation was lively and good-natured. Exchanges of creative breakthroughs or the search for that perfect word filled the table, along with stories of visits to Dursey Island on a cable car that can carry six people and one cow or one person and 10 sheep.
If you are fortunate, you might be Anam Cara when Booth-Forbes invites local friends for a hooley, or gathering. Irish accents fill the living room along with the stories and songs performed by anyone willing to sing.
Sometimes we sat in the living room listening to someone play the piano while we discussed writers, books, or our own creative processes.
One quiet evening, we went to Ardgroom Outward Stone Circle . Planted on a hillside in a circle – possibly by Bronze Age tribes – these boulders are fascinating. There seems to be one to fit each person’s individuality – tall massive stones, pointed stones that resemble rockets, and squat stones whose sturdiness is their source of pride.
The night I visited the stones was the longest day of the year. On that June evening, about 10:45 , we climbed through the field and up the hill, trying to protect our faces from the blustery wind and rain.
As our group of four stood in the stone circle, the wind and rain stopped. We knew it wasn’t magic – just Ireland .
Each visit to Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat is similar, yet different. One week when I was there, I was among individual writers and artists, each working on his or her own projects.
Another time I visited, there was a group of Canadians attending a writing workshop. If you are part of a workshop, you have a teacher who instructs and sets the schedule and curriculum. Recently, US Poet Laureate Billy Collins led a poetry workshop at Anam Cara that was organized by the Taos Institute of Art.
Tears tend to fall as residents leave to return to their homes in Australia , England , California – and even Ohio . Friendships often continue afterward, since people who gather in a place such as Anam Cara have common bonds. Excerpts of work are sent through cyberspace. Accomplishments are applauded and failures cushioned.
I have visited Anam Cara twice and plan to return this fall. After a trip I am rested, centered, and ready to take on the world. And each time I come home I not only hear the voices of the Irish, but more important, my own voice. Which, for a writer, is the most important voice of all.
Susan DeBow
Cincinnati , Ohio
Billy Collins As Soul Friend , Irish Magazine in 2001
What draws an assortment of poets to Ireland to study with Billy Collins? If you've been to the Beara Peninsula , you understand the allure of this mountainous region in West Cork ; if you are familiar with Billy Collins' poetry, its quirky bends and heart-stopping imagery, you would never even ask the question.
Billy Collins was attracting fans long before he was named Poet Laureate of the United States . His readings are always packed and his books have outsold all other modern poets. He is one of the reasons poetry is so hot in America right now.
Susan Mihalic, Curriculum Director of the Taos Institute of Arts, Taos , New Mexico , predicted he would be Poet Laureate someday. She didn't realize that honor would be announced on June 21, 2001 , a mere two weeks before Collins was slated to teach a workshop for TIA at Anam Cara, a retreat for artists and writers.
But she was happy to e-mail the good news to the 12 very lucky poets who had already registered for the trip to Ireland .
So how did the Irish American Collins wind up teaching a workshop in poetry in one of the most remote parts of Ireland ? Surfing the net, Susan happened across Anam Cara's website, and claims that she instinctively knew this would be a great venue for the Collins' workshop.
On the other end of the planning was the owner of Anam Cara, Sue Booth-Forbes . Three years ago, Sue moved from Boston to the Beara Peninsula near the village of Eyeries , and purchased the property with the intention of creating an artists' retreat.
She named it Anam Cara, which mea ns "soul friend," as a tribute to the writer John O'Donohue, whose book of Celtic wisdom bears the same title. Anam Cara only sleeps five guests, but Sue needed room for 14, so she made arrangements with two local B&Bs, Noreen O'Sullivan's Shamrock House and Rosarie O'Neill's Formane's House to accommodate the overflow.
By July 7, Anam Cara was primed for an extraordinary week. This participant's journey began on July 5. I traveled by van from Albany , New York to JFK, where I boarded a flight to Dublin , then another flight from Dublin to Cork .
As they say in Ireland , there was "a bit of a wait" for the local bus - that's nine hours in American time. If it hadn't been for the sleep deprivation, I would have negotiated some other mea ns of transportation, cab or car rental, but the cab fare, quoted between £80 and £100, was a bit too costly, and the car rental a bit too daunting.
Getting there was part of the story, getting back another saga, but the real story was being there, surrounded by the bays of Bantry, Ballydonegan, Coulagh and Kenmare, in the shadow of the Slieve Miskish mountains.
Anam Cara, with its own duck pond, flower and vegetable gardens, and private access to a river with cascades and swimming hole, was picture perfect.
Even though the workshop didn't begin until Monday, most of us gathered at Anam Cara on Sunday for a get-acquainted session and journeyed on to the local pub.
There are not too many who can claim they've done the Hokey-Pokey with the Poet Laureate of the United States ; the Anam Cara group proudly professes this distinction.
The five-day workshop was conducted mornings in the conservatory, a glass-enclosed sunroom draped with grape vines.
The participants, 11 Americans and one Irish native, ranging in age from 18 to 65 and over, represented the entire spectrum from accomplished poet to journal writer.
Monday morning the work began. Collins opened with poetry to enlighten and inspire, and assigned an exercise to be completed by the next morning.
He then explained the ground rules: we were to read an original poem, then as others critiqued the poem, we were to listen without comment.
We were allowed to take notes, but were not allowed to advocate for the poem. "See if it stands on its own two legs," encouraged Collins. "This is a way of moving your poem from the private to the public. Think of this workshop as a finishing school for the poem." Each morning the students read the previous day's assignment, then Collins made a few observations before tackling another round of poems.
He offered encouragement as well as helpful criticism, and as participant Stephanie Farrow remarked, "He tells it straight but in a way that you can accept - no mollycoddling." Peggy Harrington remembered Collins' "quick wit flying around the workshop table," and Claire Steiger recalled Collins' "generosity to the group, laced with a heavy dose of humor." Here are a few gems from Collins himself: "As a novelist invents characters, a poet invents his or her voice." And "The more informed you are by other poets, the more original you will be." Regarding the subtlety of poetry: "If you want to write about your father, write about something else which allows the father to slip into the poem when he wants to. Not to sound like Ecclesiastes, but there is a time to be clear and a time to be mysterious." And finally, after questioning a student about a particular word, he cautioned about using a thesaurus. His remarks reminded me of a couple of lines from his poem "Thesaurus": "It mea ns treasury, but it is just a place where words congregate with their relatives . . . I rarely open it, because I know there is no such thing as a synonym." This rich tapestry woven through Collins' thoughtful lessons is why we were there.
It's difficult for this student to imagine a more fertile atmosphere from which to begin her own weaving.
On Wednesday evening Anam Cara opened its doors to the public, and Collins treated the local residents to his brand of American poetry.
He read 19 poems, and might have read more but he lost the natural light illuminating the room. The residents of Eyeries (and beyond) responded with hardy appreciation to some of my personal favorites, including "On Turning Ten," "Afternoon with Irish Cows," and "Nightclub." On Thursday evening, a most gracious Collins listened to his pupils read from their works. It was almost the end of the week and his students, who had been allowed only one day "to be stupid" due to jet lag, were relaxed and playful.
The evening was packed with poems about old sedans and thin thighs, and for some of the younger students, the evening ended with a dip in the sea to celebrate Chad Reynolds' 25th birthday.
And then there was Friday night's farewell party. Eleanor (Ernie) Wormwood, another participant in the workshop, remembered Collins as "a Peter Pan high on Ireland . . . with all of us poetry kids. He danced with music, with no music, inside, outside . . . with Irish men and women . .. with band members." And in case you think his talent is limited to poetry and dancing, Ernie had a clear recollection of Collins at the microphone singing "a cappella the plaintive 'Everything Happens To Me.'" Did we get what we came for? The youngest poet, Leanne O'Sullivan, received high accolades from Collins. He told her she was "too young to be so good." Peggy Harrington learned to "look for the emotional center of (her) poems, and to pare down the words to those that support the center." Carol Lem brought home at least two prizes: a videotape of Collins with his hands cupped around a freshly-hatched duck; and a finished poem, "Workshopville," bowing to Collins' "Schoolsville." Chad Reynolds summed up his experience like this: "Billy's poetry is like an Elvis song: full of technical mastery but with a beat you can shake your hips to. Billy's teaching style is like a plate of pancakes: lots of good stuff that will stick to your ribs for a long time." Ernie Wormwood had a slightly different spin: "It is hard to take a workshop with the poet who wrote the poem 'Workshop' seriously, but Billy is extremely generous. I start to feel goose bumps about writing poems again." Sue Booth-Forbes , our hostess, did not attend the workshop, but she too was left with indelible memories.
"I found Billy to be just what his poetry is . . . accessible, irreverent, authentic and clear. From my perspective, he is a fabulous choice for Poet Laureate because of who he is as much as for what he writes." And myself? This jewel of a week, colored by emeralds and filled with pearls, will stay with me, it's true.
The seventh stanza from Collins' "Workshop" sums up the lessons learned from this Professor of English at Lehman College , now Poet Laureate.
"In fact, I start to wonder if what we have here is really two poems, or three, or four or possibly none." Collins' newest collection of poetry Sailing Alone Around the Room is currently in bookstores.
Mimi Moriarty
Clarksville , New York , USA
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