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Subject Index A-B

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Subject Index C-F

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Subject Index G-K

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Subject Index L-O

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Subject Index P-Z

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![]() Email: info@searcs-web.com Searc's Web Guide to 21st Century Ireland - Brian Keenan (born 1951) Brian Keenan was born in Belfast. He was educated at Ulster University where he obtained an MA and where he taught briefly before taking up a lecturing position at the American University in Beirut. In April, 1986 Keenan was abducted in Beirut by the Hezbollah militia and held as a hostage in their war against the Israeli occupation of the Lebanon and the United States government's support for same. During his imprisonment Keenan was chained, blindfolded, beaten and assaulted in secret locations in the Lebanon, South Beirut, Baalbeck and near the Israeli border. He was moved fifteen times during his captivity, often in car boots or the underside of vehicles and spent one year without anything to read. Keenan was released on August 24th, 1990 and his account of his captivity, An Evil Cradling, was published in 1992 and a novel Turlough about the 17th century blind Irish harpist, Turlough O'Carolan, was published in 2001. Keenan published Between Extremes: A Journey beyond Imagination (2000) with fellow hostage John McCarthy and Four Quarters of Light: An Alaskan Journey (2005). Keenan's poem Faces from Old Photos Rediscovered is published here for the first time.© |
Brian Keenan |
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Huddled together like stones Brute and doughfaced They trespass again, intinerants Freezing into focus Something forgot. A land and its people Ground down to a gristle of blunt features Bland mannered, asking little or nothing. Like mushrooms Their moon faces reveal No dark other side Neutralizing the mind To open prepositions. Half lingering, half gone, Like a slow pendulum Something stated between flesh and bone. Harking back Deciphering meaning from memory That place where the marrow lies. Crippling and ordering into Into significance; With desperate love Immeasurable and inept My face reflects In the dull gloss of these old photos Polyphonic faces blend And overlap I've left; A roomful of old echoes. © Searc's Web Guide 1997-2008 |
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