| “The Chinese New Year 2013 marks the year of the Snake graceful and dark at the same time. As one year bows out to another I often reflect on past occurrences failures and wins, silly mistakes, see if I have learned from them. Death brought many clouds of grief at losing my brother so suddenly family gatherings feel strained we all want to talk about him but don’t for fear it will create even more sadness. Like a lost bead on a necklace, the space a constant reminder of his passing. Death is a leveler of sorts a stopper of tracks just like the new year as it approaches vows will be made and broken there will be make-ups and break-ups. Haves and have-nots, peace and war. With my anthology of wishes I push on. I wish 2013 be the year man returns to listening to his intuition like the ancestors did working from within using inner radar learn to be more spiritually aware of others. Respect the songs of others like the birds in the sky their choruses are many and they live freely. Slow down and awaken to the new.”. 2013 is © Aine MacAodha Thanks to Aine for her poem 2013 to mark this New Year on Poethead. I am adding Aine’s website landing-page, Poetry and Links. Aine has published Fire of the Gaels on Poethead previously, and I have included her in my Index of Women Poets.
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Category: Contemporary Irish Women Poets
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‘Die Schwangere’
~ Pregnant in Karlsruhe ~
The other poets drink damson schnapps
from thistle-head glasses,My baby flicker-kicks
with all five ounces of her weight,
with all four inches of her length.I dream her hand
pipping from the egg of my belly
like a wing through shell,
I hold her embryonic fingers,
thrilling at her light touch.Delighting in my blooming belly,
I feel my nestled passenger,
she flicks and settles, settles and kicks;
her cells gather, graceful as an origami swan
in perfect folds and re-folds.In perfect folds and re-folds
her cells gather, graceful as an origami swan
she flicks and settles, settles and kicks;
I feel my nestled passenger
delighting in my blooming belly.Thrilling at her light touch
I hold her embryonic fingers,
like a wing through shell,
pipping from the egg of my belly,
I dream her hand.With all four inches of her length.
with all five ounces of her weight,
my baby flicker-kicks.From thistle-head glasses
the other poets drink damson schnapps..Die Schwangere
~ pregnant in Karlsruhe ~ is © Nuala Ní Chonchúir. The Juno Charm , 2011.
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About the Juno Charm
“In the tapestry that is The Juno Charm, award-winning writer Nuala Ní Chonchúir explores the worlds of two marriages – one waning, one waxing – and the pain of pregnancy loss and fertility struggles. This is an intimate book where the reader is taken by the emotional resonance of the poems, as much as by the exploration of the use of amulets and charms. The poems travels comfortably from County Galway – as in the wry Frida Kahlo Visits Ballinasloe – to Manhattan’s skyscrapers; and from the Seine in Paris to Dublin’s Liberty Hall. Ní Chonchúir once again employs her signature sensual frankness in poems of love and the body (‘I am the pomegranate / and you, the peacock // My seedy, red-pulped core / glistens with juice, / awaits your entrance’). Sometimes irreverent, always vivid, this is poetry ripe with imaginative possibility and wit. ” From Salmon PoetryThanks to Nuala Ní Chonchúir for supporting Poethead with her poems and translations.
- Her poems appear here and here on the blog.
- I also included Nuala Ni Chonchúir in a celebration of Irish Women’s writing on Bloomsday 2012.
- WomenRuleWriter
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Morning,
and his rust-coloured shadow
is cast onto the floor,beneath it the stone flags
show their cracks and flaws,they are brown
maroonish
or black.That he may come in to wound her
that he may come in to love her
is the same thing.There are two pots
There are bowls,
there is a pestle
and a short knife,in the metal dish
is the featherless corpse
bathed in its blood.
He winged itbefore he broke its neck for the pot.
That he may come to wound her
that he may come to love her
is the same thing.He is a cruel child.
He has the cruelty of a childwho knows where the fractures are
he can trace them with his handsalthough the fractures are silvered in their healing
for her, the scars sing.That he want to wound to wound her
that he may want to love her
is the same thing.Sabine is © C. Murray.
First published in The Southword Literary Journal 2012 as Two Songs of War and a Lyric
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Fire of the Gaels!
‘She is every woman
who struggles for survival
in a world of prisons
of one form or another.
Her stories, etched on the
landscapes of the universe.
She is the mouth
of the Blackwater,
the secrets of the Alder,
the writing on the caves
and the shedder of light.
She is the blueprints
of the past,
the wishes of the unborn,
the spirit of the crops
and the heat of the sun
bursting on buds.
Shes the midges on the lough,
the guardian of the wells,
the bones of the earth
and the ties that bind
by spirit and blood.
Shes the songs sung so often
renewed on the lips of the young.
Her tongue fiery can cut like an axe
or sooth like a lullaby.
She is goddess of the people,
the fire on the hills.
Shes the shadow on the stones
glinting on river beds.
The breath of a new morning,
and a beacon in the night.
She is every woman.
She is Aine,
fire of the gaels.’
Fire of the Gaels is © Aine Mac Aodha, all rights reserved. The poem was first published in Argotistonline
Aine Mac Aodha lives in Omagh. Her work has been published internationally as well as locally, and in the UK. She is a Founder member of The Busheaneys Writers Group and The Derry Playhouse Writers. Her work has appeared in Luciole Press, The Glasgow Review, Irish Haiku, Pirene’s Fountain and Argotist online to name a few. She begins much of her writing at her Residencies at The Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Monaghan and is greatful to her time spent there.
Her poetry is plainly written, she is inspired by the Irish landscape and by poets Seamus Heaney, John Montague, Rumi, Basho and many of the modern poets today.Related links
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There is a new moon
and the heavy clouds are calm,
the wind has dropped,
yet there is still a tap-tapping
on your window.
Does it bother you?
That shiver, as if something’s breath
has grazed, raised the hairs on your neck.
Why do you rise and draw the curtains
tight across the chink?
Look out –
the shadows steal towards you.
What is it startles next door’s dog,
its barking, sudden to start, sudden to cease?
Not the cat,
she’s hissing beneath your bed.
Who- or what – is watching ?
Believe what you will,
that crunch of gravel,
that scuffle at your sill
is not a fox or swooping owl.
Did you lock the back door ? Are you sure ?
The crows are roosting in high branches,
it is not they who claw through your bins
for numbers, dates, addresses,
leaving scattered shreds,
knocking that broken pot
you find in the morning.
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© Kate Dempsey , all rights reserved.from Some Poems, Published 2011. Some Poems ,a Moth Little Edition.
Image , Portrait of Maud Cook by Thomas Eakins, 1895
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Chaplet
I.
A conversation among trees
I cannot hear what they are saying, that young girl and the tree,
their whispers are intimate, ceaseless.I am sunk into a conifer hedge, tamped into a wall,
threaded into the blue ivy.This is a warm chaplet against the rain,
I would lie here if it wasn’t for the sky—the sky will not skew to my vision,
body conspires with green-leaf to thrust me forward
II.
Bower
I am become aware that it is time for this to cease,
a mead of daisies whiten on the windward side
of a grove. Trees,
daisies, are blown white beneath a silver beech.Those hues balance
for once —And,
and If I step at once from the shelter of this close bower,
will I hold?© C. Murray
The image Chaplet is by Alice Maher and is used for this poem courtesy of Alice Maher and the Green on Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland.
Chaplet © C Murray
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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 -
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 -
Phrase Books Never Equip you for the Answers
On the morning of the fifteenth time we went through
our sleep-with-your-ex routine, I had the usual optimism
thing about mistakes is to not keep repeating the same ones
I said disregarding the government health warning
on the cigarettes I was sucking, crossing the road without
stopping speaking or looking, ignoring the red man pulsing
on the lights at the junction, I was wired direct and I said;
I know, I’ll write you the definitive user manual for me.
You said I was arrogant that we should make it up as we go,
and I said; well could I do a mind map then? With
here be dragons marked clearly in red, so we won’t flounder
like last time end up washed up dehydrated and drained
well I was, fairly wired, I said ‘in each shipwreck we’re lessened
embittered, come on, let me at least try to fix it, I can write us
a blueprint for the new improved version, and you laughed
and said well damn you for a head-wreck, go on then and do it.So I wrote, but it came out all stilted, like a work in translation
see when I say, let me fix that or give it here and I’ll do it
it means I need you, and if I tell you for example how
I’ll re-arrange the universe to your liking it doesn’t mean
I’m superior in fact, translated it’s about the same as the last one-
‘can you not see, how I need you? And when I come out with all those
‘you-shoulds’ that drive you demented, there’s no disrespect in ‘em
verbatim they’re whispering I’d be desolated without you
and when you call me control freak, the tendencies you’re describing
are inherently rooted in my fear of you leaving and how I’ll react.Less-wired more hopeful I brought you my phrase book
on our very next meeting but you kissed my cheek and said
let me stop you a minute and then those awful words that never
signify good outcomes, listen I’ve been thinking… I know
we’ve got this weird cyclical attraction thing going and I’m sorry
for my part in it but really I can’t see it working, the problem
for me is how you just don’t need anything and my phrase book
had nothing listed under that heading.© Sarah Clancy
Thanks to Sarah Clancy for the poem, Phrase Books Never Equip you for the Answers , which is taken from Thanks for Nothing Hippies , which will be launched in April 2012, by Salmon Poetry. Hippy Get a Job , by Sarah Clancy, is here.
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The Irish Writer’s Centre, last evening 06/01/2012, hosted along with Dublin City Council a celebration of women’s poetry, music and literature to mark Oíche Nollaig Na mBan (Women’s Christmas). The event was presented by June Considine.
And what a night it was.
The event was bi-partite in structure, with readings by three poets and story-tellers to begin, a brief interval filled with music was quickly followed by three more readings by three more women writers. The first half was decidedly poetic, with readings in English and Irish by Celia de Fréine, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Eilis Ní Dhuibhne.
Celia De Fréine read In Relation to Each Other, Dearbhail , Celia Óg , and Ophelia. Dearbhail was indeed heart-breaking, the tale of the murder of Dearhbail by jealous women.
Eilis Ní Dhuibhne read two tales , The Man Who Had No Story and The Blind.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill read from a few collections, Including from my favourite Pharaoh’s Daughter, with translations by Paul Muldoon, Michael Hartnett, and Dr. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin. Poems read included , The Language, Dán do Melissa, and Closure.
Music flowed along with wine as Jane Hughes on cello & Ellen Cranitch on flute played a selection from Carolan and Tchaikovsky, including the much giggled upon Fanny Power.
Interval over, the business of literature reared it’s head in the shape of Mary O Donnell ,who read from a WIP about Northern Ireland , alongside two poems which were tremendous and indicate a wonderful talent in two quite distinct areas of writerly discipline.
Sarah Clancy charmed the crowd with her Argument Poems , which included Ringing in Sick To Go Mermaid-Hunting, Cinderella Backwards , and Riot Act.
Mia Gallagher topped the evening off with some reading from her upcoming book.
This should not have been a unique evening in the calendar. There are hints of more such evenings being planned, the audience was mixed between the sexes and they were always interested. It was utterly charming, eclectic and beautifully balanced. I expect that people who wish more detail on the music and books can contact the Irish Writer’s Centre directly. Kudos to the board, volunteers and organisers for a great evening.
Pic by Stephanie Joy
Chris Murray 