On Ethna McKiernan

Last night I attended a book launch for my friend Ethna McKiernan's latest poetry collection. It was much more than that.

I met Ethna back in 1989 when Jeff the Cabby decided we should meet. Turned out we were both in the same issue of a magazine that'd just come out. I was immediately intimidated by Ethna's success. We hit it off anyway, and she invited me to join a writing group she headed up. The group met often at Irish Books & Media, which she owned. I suppose that wonderful thing lasted 4-5 years before my drinking made me uncomfortable in the mostly-sober group and I walked away.

A pandemic-era stage had been built outside Celtic Junction and last night I watched Ethna slip from a wheelchair onto a regular chair during a very nice reception that preceded the reading portion of event. For my part it mostly involved watching a photoshoot of the McKiernan family and seizing an opportunity to run up and say hi to my friend.

I quit drinking in 2006 and finished my first novel—started and workshopped in that writing group back in the early '90s. I reconnected with Ethna. She consented—offered?—to read the manuscript. I remember her telling me it would be an “important book.” Can't be right all the time... She invited me back into the group. Shipping costs, she said, had forced her to give up her business. She would soon begin doing outreach for the homeless—checking camps and underpasses to make sure her clients were safe.

Four poet friends of Ethna's joined her on stage and read a couple of poems apiece from her new book, Light Rolling Slowly Backwards.

In May, I had nearly finished my ninth novel. It's heavy on Walt Whitman and—needing a poet's eye to see if I'd done it right—I asked Ethna if she would read it. She graciously agreed and, forty pages later, emailed me back with mostly positive thoughts, some negatives, and an apology for not being quicker to respond: “I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in November so my energy ebbs and wanes.”

They brought out a music stand and adjusted the microphone so Ethna could read. She read six or seven poems, a little shaky, though very emotional—and felt by all.

Yes, more than a book launch. A celebration of a life that still leaves me intimidated. A celebration of a friend.