Robert Hass and Derek Mahon at the Pavilion Dun Laoghaire

Poetry readings eh, I'm ambivalent about them. Somehow the tics and tremors of the poets can interfere with the pellucid words. However, it does serve as an opportunity to accord the bard some respect by turning up when they perform. And I have great admiration for poetry when it's not a lisping sonneteer at the helm. We have constantly to be on our guard against preciousness. Give me the hard taskmasters like Larkin, Berryman, and Yeats.

Tonight in Dun Laoghaire was mighty fine. Peter Fallon, who should be given the Nobel Prize for his services to poetry, introduced both Derek Mahon and Robert Hass, an American poet new to me - but well known to poetry lovers generally as he was American poet lauerate from 1995 to 1997 (I didn't even know they had such a thing).

Mahon was polished and even suave. He deflected Fallon's fulsome introduction by rejoining that "Peter always exaggerates, but in a nice way". He's thinner than he used to be and there is a whiff of privilege, preferrment and tenure about him - a practised international performer. The poetry though is elegant and intelligent.

Hass puts on an extraordinary performance, at least from my position overlooking the lectern: he shakily arranges his papers, picks up a water bottle, puts it down without drinking, takes off his watch and places it on an ajoining table, picks up the water bottle again, puts it down again without drinking from it, picks up the watch and places it on the lectern where it slides to the raised edge, shuffles the papers some more and off he goes. Between poems he repeats this perfomance and is so shaky throughout that it's amazing he can separate the sheets. But his poetry is passionate and more immediate than Mahon's - there's a particularly moving one abut his mother's alcoholism and his father's insensitivity in dealing with it; also a touching one about Nietzsche's last days in Turin. Some memorable lines: "a word is elegy to what it signifies".

Dorothy Cross at the Kerlin Gallery

A ruined old currach suspended from the ceiling, and a pristine (albeit dead) gannet hanging underneath; metal footballs with hands reaching out from them; a couple of well made metal skulls and a whole lot of mediocre photographs of primitive islanders in boats - now go figure all that out. Oh and most of the photographs and the trite video have been taken on West Ireland in the South Sea Islands - very droll that. I reckon I have as much imagination as the next man and can see significance in a grain of sand but all this leaves me cold - much ado about nothing.

I quite like the idea of Dorothy Cross however and the way she adds to the gaiety of nations. Her flourescent light ship in Sandycove was a big hit with my kids and her innovations with cows' udders gave me the odd chuckle. Her video art always seemed pointless to me though. Her forte is the theatrical and the visual jolt that you get from direct encounters with her work. I remember the Waterford glass phallus (lovingly created) and the image of herself nude on the cross - Cross crucified geddit. Tee hee.

Paul McKinley at the RHA

Huge crowd at the RHA for the Nissan Art Project featuring Paul McKinley (with some Mark Clare video as a side show) - mainly student liggers mind you hammering the free wine supplied by Nissan.

I'd never seen PM's work before and was somewhat surprised to find meticulously painted figurative work - using a pointilist style reminiscent of Seurat but with the dots raised off the canvas. The works (mainly landscapes) had an artificiality that reminded me of Stephen McKenna. They were very attractive, if conventional pieces, and eminently collectible I'd say.

In sharp contrast to this we were also offered the video art of Mark Clare - jumping around in a small squalid room or pinching his arm and describing himself as "the perfect human being". We can only hope, I suppose, that he is being deeply ironic. But I'm biased here - video art (?) leaves me cold.

Six Nations Rugby Week 5: From Woe to Weal and after out of Joy

Chaucer was a great man for the Wheel of Fortune - in his works, such as Troilus and Criseyde, the wheel turned slowly albeit inexorably. For the Irish Rugby team, and its tormented supporters, it spun around with cruel alacrity. But great drama nonetheless.

Cecily Brennan at the Taylor Gallery

Cecily Brennan is an unlikely artist for the Taylor Gallery - judging by her recent work anyway. I remember commenting about this to Pat Taylor during her last show which featured scarred wrists and ecszema. His response was that when they took her on first she painted flowers. The inference being that they were taking the commercial hit based on the historical good times. Or maybe it's just the Taylors demonstrating that they care for art beyond the best sellers like Le Brocquy, Crozier etc.

The current show is just as uncommercial - and even at the very modest prices (less that €2K) only a couple had sold on the opening night. I like the work a lot - it's mainly very minimalist water-colour nudes, jagged and expressive, occasionally suggestive of Schiele. In the midst of these spare pieces are a couple of cryptic videos. One features a girl in a crisp white blouse getting knocked over and covered by great dark waves of black paint - good fun for the kids. The other shows an almost disembodied arm making patterns on a wall - occasionally, fleetingly, a nipple is seen.