I recently came across another member of the Belfast Group of writers, Joan Newmann. The group included Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, James Simmons and others who attended the workshops organised by Philp Hobsbaum, an English lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB).
Joan Newmann’s slim booklet of poems, First Letter Home and Other Poems was published in 1967 by QUB, and is now a part of their Special Collections at the McClay library.
I particularly liked Memory of a Hare which tightly tells the story of a hare struck by a car and the gruesome consequences.
The Honest Ulsterman was a literary magazine edited by James Simmons. It is reborn in an online publication called HU.
Joan Newmann is a co-founder of Summer Palace Press with her daughter, Kate. They have recently celebrated 10 years in the publishing business.
odespinner 