Category: Contemporary Irish Women Poets

  • ‘tree is real silver’ published Poetry Ireland Review (N°138)

      Tree is real silver I. Birds tremble there alighting — (lighting) its stained glass recedes and within each bright ening light ening shape the song of a bird embeds a garnet— Each red-feathered song pewtering silver -ground on lazuli II. I see their (a) -lighting. They leaf the tree in the absence of bud,…

  • “Passing through” and other poems by Betty Thompson

    Balloons A stream of them – long and ribboning before they were inflated; breath-filled they turned into globes and cylinders: fat demi-lunes ably shaped by the long-fingered magician who, in his downtime offstage from the Hippodrome, relaxing by the fire, legs stretched across the hearth, would plunge those long hands into his pockets, to pull…

  • “Time” by Fidel Hogan Walsh and Julie Corcoran

    2020, Memories Blinded in a winter’s dread no prophet foresaw. Spring’s new life erupted into a chaos of fear. Desolation replaced the warmth of a hug. Children banished from our everyday lives! Ahh, the blessings — a swift journey home to the unexpected happiness under one roof. Chatter, laughter — a family enduring dark days…

  • Poems from ‘Alchemy’ by Fiona Perry

    Postpartum You are as naked as a shucked oysterso, my breasts are slashed and raining pearlsfor you, my suckling child. The universehas too many doors. A terrifying flowerunfurled overnight to tell me if they tookyou away or carted you off to dielike pink tender veal. I would be preparedto stand on my own mother’s shouldersto…

  • Poems from “Venus in Pink Marble” by Gaynor Kane

      Window weather The Icelanders have a word that means just that.A murky day that you know is betterenjoyed from the comfort of a window seat;soft mizzle cleansing leaves shiny and bright. When webs become crystal dreamcatchers,or perfect drops form on the telephone linesand slide slowly down like the oilon the wire of the indoor…

  • “Safer Distances” and other poems by Jennifer Horgan

    If you were able you’d go upstairs with me. Dream your hips poised mum jug-like dipped towards the sun. In some afternoon’s shuttered light we’re choosing fabrics to be hung. Your style, your certainty, tugs the rope of a French church bell. You’re young again, words held on winding steps in France. In this dream…

  • “Shock Absorber” and other poems by Anne Donnellan

    Snare I am tired of you being you tired of the slit-eye side scan tired of the frivolous flip of your bone, tired of your toy dog dead head bob. If I dare to step on your shadow you gobble my frame with vacant glare torch my aura with ethanol as I utter a word…

  • ‘The Writing Desk’ and other poems by Sinéad McClure

    ‘The Writing Desk’ and other poems by Sinéad McClure

    Subsidence I’m of the age now That’s how my GP put it as he half muttered something about female hormones leaving my body I imagined them packing their bags happily, looking forward to exploring better terrain, cooler plains. They don’t leave quietly there is a deep boom sounding in me loud enough to raise heckles…

  • Recent Additions to The Fired! Archive at RASCAL (QUB)

    The RASCAL database at Queen’s University, Belfast, has hosted Fired! Irish Poets since early February 2019.  Fired! Irish Poets  was established in the summer of 2017 to address issues of marginalisation and the neglect of Irish women poets in both the contemporary and historical Irish poetry canon. Recent additions to the database include Eavan Boland…

  • ‘After Rembrandt’s Women’ by Iseult Healy

      Delicious She was no Eve this apple of a woman whose red dress surrounded the flowing flesh of twin hillocks, hung over the ridge of her cheeks to flow down to stocking tops Hot and juicy, easy-peel woman They ate at their pleasure wiped her juice from their jaws munched to the skeletal core…