[John Beaton]

I'm on Maui just now and, with my wife, was recently a guest on "Celtic music with Hamish" on the local Mana'o Radio station.

Hamish Burgess, bagpiper, Celtic artist, and host of the show, has an appreciation for poetry and was a friend of the late Liam Clancy. He told me that Liam was a great one for entertaining people with poetry recited from memory, and he sent me this link to a recorded Clancy recitation of a poem written by Padraic Fallon.

I think memorization helps a poet convey a poem emotionally, and that this recitation is a good example of that. I can't see Clancy standing up in a roomful of people, picking up a book, and reading like this.

John