"I wanted to read or hear the narrative of someone else – a woman and a poet – who has gone here and been there." (Eavan Boland 1944-2020) 🚫 #VAWG
"I wanted to read or hear the narrative of someone else – a woman and a poet – who has gone here and been there." Eavan Boland (1944-2020) Below are short biographies of contemporary women poets who are living, have lived, or who are currently practicing in Ireland. I began collating an index of contemporary [...]
The below preamble and poems are excerpted from the Lares Series, composed between April 2020 and November 2020. The entire series can be read (and downloaded) Via Indelible Literary Journal. 'Lares' is dedicated in gratitude to Eavan Boland (1944-2020). The series derives from my current MSS in progress. My most grateful thanks to Roula-Maria Dib [...]
Through The Trees I See Three baby deer play tag on our property, darting around and against each other, very cheerful, very invincible during this cool September morning, just as the light breaks through and day remains smudged and the grass is still wet. That moment right before the quivering world dies down, hardens, grows [...]
Mary O'Donnell reads from Massacre of the Birds - 2 from Conor O'Hagan on Vimeo. Against the Vanishing Hollywood Lake, Co Monaghan 1.On the lakeshoreof conscience I stand.God help me. Certain that in Argentina,a woman also stands,nature-struck. My unknown companionwill recognise waterfowl,marvel at grebes, flamingos, as I too greet the ducksand moorhensof this drumlin lake. [...]
Cave of the Firbolg (Nano Reid, oil on board) Not even a trespass of sky to compromise the dark where blood beats in the body of the heart. Nobody thinks, Why do we do this? The nervous system ferries its thin shards of glass down among the clay, where the blunt flint of the soul [...]
Anatomy of Love Your hands quiver along the dead roses of the embossed armchair, its towering sides, pillars to the underworld. You spend your days here, an old spectator of trawlers and rust, spilt oil and empty stomachs, pilothouse lights shine miniature homesteads on concrete. I was the first child to soften your world, your [...]
Drink Before the War The bells of St. Fin Barre, off again Five faint chimes and warring finches 2:41am birdsongs sculpt slim air Rollers, tits, a fidgeting pigeon Crashes on a glass ceiling Neck feathers bobbing, weaving warning: No one with roots doubled under Can survive these days I tried [...]
Threads Not long ago we were wearing our neighbourhood’s pass-along clothes. Dirndl skirts, duffel coats, old dungarees did the rounds of our townland. Two hills away, fourth or so cousins broke in new blouses and pinafores. Their jumpers next on the boys up the road; mine for a time the following year. A spell [...]
Ludus or “A Thousand Poems” You’ve written a thousand poems for me, my friend --in your sapio-sudsy head… in a world as real as this one, where the ebb and flow of its soapy tides, brush off and on that murky shore— where all that can’t but is, all that shouldn’t but will, and all [...]
There, at the bend of the river There, at the bend of the river, I almost turned. I almost became the b r o k e n bough that floats, almost became a bride in the l a c y wake almost borrowed the choir of incessant birds almost forsook dry land for amniotic waters [...]
Poet's Note These poems that I submitted are a part of my experience as a volunteer in an immigrant detention centre in Northern Ireland. They were written in Italian and translated into English by the poet Maria McManus. The English language versions appear beneath the poems. [...]
The shame of our island is that we killed the wolf. Not just the last but the two before that. I knew a man who met a man who was the cousin removed of the great-grandson of the man who killed the third-last wolf on the island. Slit it he did, to see the steaming [...]
Brilliantly dark, beak shining golden in the noon — an ornament of an Egyptian god, the Eleonora falcon in flight is manifesting above the incandescently brown island what it means to be a prince in whom time is. That Which Is Coming Is Unknown On a dark September dawn, in my head, I was [...]
Beochaoineadh Máthar Maoise A dhílleachta linbh gan ainm, gan athair, Do chraiceann ar aondath le humha an nathair, A lúbann timpeall do thaobhán uiríseal, Mar bhata ceannródaí is sníomhanna sisil. Is trua liom ciseán do dhóchas a fhíochán, Do dhán a chaitheamh i bpoll an duibheagáin, D’eiseadh a chruthú ar bhunús baill séire, ‘Nois tá [...]
Romanichals in the 1950’s (i) covels packed chavies scrubbed clean me rackley’s bal washed with panni the grai grizhomed holled (ii) opre and gel on dikk the next atchin tan a fellow chal pookers kushti bokt Romani words: Romanichals – English Romanies; Covels – belongings; Chavies – children; rackley’s – girls; Grai – horses; Grizhomed [...]
Trade An assortment of crooked and straight arrows for the crest of a bulbul or a handful of sesame Uncut turquoise for juices of scorpions and glow worms A dozen poisons for an embroidered collar/ a pinch of saffron/ abalone knob Spotted eggs for knotted shoes Peacock feathers for beet sugar How much fur will [...]
Vulnerability Raise the fallen, walk over them. Fear the consequences of a kind action, undermine the impact of a bad deed. Maybe there's more to life, maybe there isn't. Fight the oppressor, break the chains. Remain slaves? These haunting memories, these hopeless days, These hopeful dreams. Light a candle, say a prayer. Doubt! Close [...]
Hushed Light pours down the unrelenting sky to earth ribbed and ridged with the tough stroke of Drysdale’s brush I track down words for hues and shades in books envy the skill of artist-explorers who forged new ways of seeing The cries of crows fall Through blues onto rusty ochres pulsing with raven dust [...]
Love I have another body outside of me they call it love [but this is pain] if I had carried you in my body only then I would have felt your existence this much State My heart melts when I think of you the eyes aren’t satisfied with seeing neither are the lips with kissing [...]
Sara Daughter of Sana Age 9 Why does my father beat my mother ? She does not know how to iron his shirts properly. Me, when I am grown up I will iron the shirts very well. FAÂdi Son of Sonia Age: 7 You know, Mother if the giant comes [...]
Darshan (Hindi: the pleasure of looking) In my favourite of your Indian stories you are working in your room in the garden ashram: the air is heavy with mangoes and dung the cows in the gowshala sing the saffron cloths of the swami flap like prayer flags on the line. You are [...]
the stress clinic it’s ok no one need know only negligible impending threat i’m going to leave you let healing happen i’m turning left into the coffee shop it’s easy like this one step one more comforting to sit even on seats slashed by spooks i can wait learn patience is learnt on the edge [...]
Máire Mhac an tSaoi poetry Original Irish versions followed by English translations . Ceathrúintí Mháire Ní Ógáin I Ach a mbead gafa as an líon so – Is nár lige Dia gur fada san – B’fhéidir go bhfónfaidh cuimhneamh Ar a bhfuaireas de shuaimhneas id bhaclainn Nuair a bheidh arm o chumas guíochtaint, Comaoine is [...]
Vinca Haiku she grazes her scar old blood the color of rust on her maiden lace charcoal and red smudge nothing can make up the pain the dark trudge quickens tiny wallflower you cannot hold a candle you, periwinkle The Spanish Girl Haiku she follows the clouds the breath of the summer wind gently [...]
And her yellow music caught in the throat of birds I waited a minute on the wind, on your roof, outside. She had been awaiting me in the middle of the day having come warm over those seas to find me, high over the little streams and the lakes she came [...]
Ten years ago it seemed impossible That she should ever grow as calm as this, With self-remembrance in her warmest kiss And dim dried eyes like an exhausted well. Slow-speaking when she has some fact to tell, Silent with long unbroken silences, Centred in self yet not unpleased to please, Gravely monotonous like a passing [...]
In the hush of my father's house, before dusk rustles over the horizon, I take off the dress my mother made -it's as ruby red as St Michael's cloak- and with a stitch of linen, bind my breasts. By the greasy light of a candle, I shear my hair to the style of a [...]
Once I heard him he was washing the world, unseen, nightlong, real. One and infinite, annihilated, ied. Light was. Salvation. From : Fathomsuns and Benighted, Paul Celan, trans, Ian Fairley. 1991. Carcanet Books.
Gorse Fire (The people is grass) (from the Scriptures) Above the ancient friary ruin —wind blown — downfrom the mountain — smoke —(no shrouding mist)against a scorching sun. Flames of fireburst and run across the pathafter my tardy footprint. Was it [...]
Reticulum Time, the liar's almanackDanced on our prognosticationsThe solar year eclipsed by a cellFlares from a vernal coronaVisible to the naked I Seen from my camera obscuraMy infinite cellAn anchorite's hazelnutInexplicable and undifferentiatedLike water on the tongue I recast my reticle on smaller thingsHeliotrope, breath of a mouseAn orrery of bonesRecanting the psalmsSeasoned with new [...]
Blackberries The heedless sun lowers its glass lid of shimmering air onto the sweltering yellow green train embankment, enclosing it in a golden dome of syrupy heat. It is time to pick blackberries. They stand there proudly, gleam red and black on their curved stems, and flourish on the last patch of unbuilt land. The [...]
I am conflicted The stream calls your name while squirrels play with baby scots-pine cones as bubbling water flows over upturned stones covered in green, like envy I am jangled by loss Glints of light and shade while a kingfisher dips its wings ravens and crows hatch a plot to disagree over tainted morsels of [...]
Poethead by Chris Murray 
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