As part of this year’s Fermanagh Live Arts Festival (FLive) programme, acclaimed Leitrim poet Stephen Murphy will perform his latest work, ‘A Misty Morning on a Fermanagh Farm’ – the first time the poem will be performed in the county of its inception.

The performance will take place on Saturday, October 8 at 3pm in Pat’s Bar, Enniskillen.

Stephen has been described by President Michael D. Higgins as “a splendid, courageous and gifted young poet” whose work is often said to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”.

Stephen’s poetry has amassed millions of views online and, while he has performed to crowds in the tens of thousands on several occasions, he draws his inspiration from the time and space afforded to him by living a quiet life with his family in the wilds of rural Ireland.

Speaking to The Impartial Reporter, Stephen is looking forward to returning to Enniskillen, having recently headlined at the revival of The Thing Itself; a poetry, spoken word and song event hosted at Mulhern’s Cellar Bar.

“I’ve done a couple of gigs up in Fermanagh over the years and I love it. I love Enniskillen town. Sure, I’ve only grown up 40 minutes down the road,” said Stephen, adding: “I know a lot of people up around the area as well, so I’m just looking forward to getting up to be part of something in amongst friends.

“Some gigs you go and do can be a bit daunting, but I’m just looking forward to this one.”

Detailing the inspiration behind ‘A Misty Morning on a Fermanagh Farm’ Stephen explained that the poem was born out of a conversation he had had with a friend about a pine marten stealing food.

“It started life at a friend of mine’s house in Belleek. He was telling me about one day when his partner came into the room and said, ‘There’s something in the kitchen’, and he went in and there was a pine marten sitting at his table eating the chicken off his plate.

‘A thank-you note’

“He said he didn’t kill the pine marten, but he told it that it should at least write him a thank-you note,” said Stephen, noting that not long after having this conversation with his friend, he was due to attend an artist retreat in Kerry at the Cill Rialaig Arts Centre.

“I had the idea of the [pine marten’s] thank-you note in my head when I was going down.

“Cill Rialaig is a very powerful place; you’re on the edge of the ocean. So I went to bed the first night that I was down there, and I woke up and the thank-you note from the pine marten was already fully formed in my head.

“And as soon as I had that written, I thought, ‘The chickens are probably due a right of reply here’, and then the pig [response] kicked in, and all of a sudden I’ve got all these animals just having this big mad conversation in my head!

“And that was the kind of birth of it, from a pine marten stealing chicken off a plate,” he said, with a laugh.

Having performed the poem twice before, first in Kinsale and then as a fundraiser in Lurganboy Church of Ireland, in his local village, Stephen noted that this will be the first time that ‘A Misty Morning on a Fermanagh Farm’ will be performed in Fermanagh.

“It’ll be great to bring it to its natural home place.”

The poem itself is around 80 minutes long, when performed.

“A friend of mine said, ‘You don’t brand that as a 80-minute poem, because people will just automatically go, ‘What? No!’ That sounds like an effort to even sit through it.

“When it’s a play, which it essentially is, between loads of different farmyard animals that are all in my head, then it [seems] a lot less. Then it’s really natural to do it,” said Stephen, adding: “The other evening, when I did it [in Lurganboy Church of Ireland], I had an interval in between so people could get up and drink tea and eat cake then come back for the second half of it.

“It actually worked really well. The first half was about 40-45 minutes, and then the second half is probably about half an hour. It’s a nice balance, actually.”