Category Archives: International Women’s Day , Poetry

International Women’s Day 2013, poems for Malala Yousafzai

Poem for Malala

To Malala Yousafzai.

We see it all.
All of it.

The red-stain,
the shame.

We do not feel the skull-shatter-impact,
the moveable plate – the tube,

the tubes.
The blood-bags.
The bags of blood,
the urine.

Your eye,
the eye-blood
that occludes your vision.

Red filters down,
lowering them to the ground.
Our hackles are raised.

Father – Mother
Daughter – Son
Sister – Brother
Niece – Child

Child child child child child.

Somethings are veiled.
It is necessary to veil
what is sometimes a wound,

to cover
to dignify
to protect.

A green veil.
A beaded veil,

the tip of
an eyebrow raises it -
Disturbs it,
for the breath of.

I would sew the sequins myself,
make good the golden threads.

If you must veil,
let it crown you,
let it crown your head,

as laurels, green, on your head.

.
malala (2)For Malala is © C. Murray, published along with 200 poems protesting the shooting of 14 year old Malala Yousafzai. Time to say No ! is published by Pen Club Austria. With sincere thanks to both Helmuth Niederle and Philo Ikonya for producing this ebook. 

A poem by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill to celebrate International Women’s Day 2012, english translation

The Mermaid in the Hospital
 
‘She awoke
to find her fishtail
clean gone
but in the bed with her
were two long, cold thingammies.
You’d have thought they were tangles of kelp
or collops of ham.
 
‘They’re no doubt
taking the piss,
it being New Year’s Eve.
Half the staff legless
with drink
and the other half
playing pranks.
Still, this is taking it
a bit far.’
And with that she hurled
the two thingammies out of the room.
 
But here’s the thing
she still doesn’t get —
why she tumbled out after them
arse-over-tip . . .
How she was connected
to those two thingammies
and how they were connected
to her.
 
It was the sister who gave her the wink
and let her know what was what.
‘You have one leg attached to you there
and another one underneath that.
One leg, two legs . . .
A-one and a-two . . .
 
Now you have to learn
what they can do.’
 
In the long months
that followed
I wonder if her heart fell
the way her arches fell,
her instep arches.’
 
© by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, all rights reserved. from The Fifty Minute Mermaid (Gallery Books, 2007) The Irish language  original is here.

Thank you to Suella Holland from Gallery Press for allowing me to use this poem to celebrate Irish Women’s Poetry and translation on International Women’s Day 2012.

Clonfert Cathedral Mermaid by Andreas F. Borchert

A poem by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill to celebrate International Women’s Day 2012

Happy International Women’s Day 2012. The following poem is by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill , there is a translation and attribution notice published separately to An Mhurúch san Ospidéal. 

An Mhurúch san Ospidéal

‘ Dhúisigh sí
agus ní raibh a heireaball éisc ann
níos mó
ach istigh sa leaba léi
bhí an dá rud fada fuar seo.
Ba dhóigh leat gur gaid mhara iad
nó slaimicí feola.

‘Mar mhagadh atá siad
ní foláir,
Oíche na Coda Móire.
Tá leath na foirne as a meabhair
le deoch
is an leath eile acu
róthugtha do jokeanna.
Mar sin féin is leor an méid seo,’
is do chaith sí an dá rud
amach as an seomra.

Ach seo í an chuid
ná tuigeann sí —
conas a thit sí féin ina ndiaidh
‘cocs-um-bo-head’.
Cén bhaint a bhí
ag an dá rud léi
nó cén bhaint a bhí aici
leosan?

An bhanaltra a thug an nod di
is a chuir í i dtreo an eolais —
‘Cos í seo atá ceangailte díot
agus ceann eile acu anseo thíos fút.
Cos, cos eile,
a haon, a dó.

Caithfidh tú foghlaim
conas siúl leo.’

Ins na míosa fada
a lean
n’fheadar ar thit a croí
de réir mar a thit
trácht na coise uirthi,
a háirsí?’

© by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, all rights reserved. from The Fifty Minute Mermaid (Gallery Books, 2007)

Thank you to Gallery Press for allowing me to use this poem to celebrate Irish Women’s Poetry and translation on International Women’s Day 2012. The English translation of the poem is here.

Clonfert Cathedral mermaid by Andreas F. Borchert

Two Poems by Ingeborg Bachmann for International Women’s Day 2011.


In the Storm of Roses, by Ingeborg Bachmann.

“Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
the night is lit up by thorns, and the thunder
of leaves, once so quiet within the bushes,
rumbling at our heels.”

The Broken Heart by Ingeborg Bachmann

“News o’ grief had overteaken
Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;
There she zot, wi’ breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi’ grieven,
Vell her head, wi’ tears a-creepen
Down her cheaks, in bitter weepen.
There wer still the ribbon-bow
She tied avore her hour ov woe,
An’ there wer still the hans that tied it
Hangen white,
Or wringen tight,
In ceare that drowned all ceare bezide it.

When a man, wi’ heartless slighten,
Mid become a maiden’s blighten,
He mid cearelessly vorseake her,
But must answer to her Meaker;
He mid slight, wi’ selfish blindness,
All her deeds o’ loven-kindness,
God wull waigh ‘em wi’ the slighten
That mid be her love’s requiten;
He do look on each deceiver,
He do know
What weight o’ woe
Do break the heart ov ev’ry griever.”


2010 International Women’s Day: A poem by EBB.

I am hoping this is a creative commons image, THnX Iosaf.

Pain in Pleasure 

‘ A thought lay like a flower upon mine
heart,
And drew around it other thoughts like
bees
For multitude and thirst of
sweetnesses, -
Whereat rejoicing , I desired the art
Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf
and mart
Could lure those insect swarms from
orange-trees,
That I might hive with me such thoughts,
and please
my soul so, always. Foolish counterpart
of a weak man’s vain wishes! While I
spoke,
The thought I called a flower, grew
nettle-rough _
The thoughts , called bees, stung me to
festering.
O entertain (cried reason, as she
woke)
Your best and gladdest thoughts but long
enough,
And they will all prove sad enough to
sting.’

This from a set of Photocopied pages of EBB, incl. The Sonnets from the Portuguese.