Category: Northern Irish Women Poets
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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…
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A Celebration of Women’s Poetry on International Women’s Day 2019
Image: Srilata Krishnan Poethead has been celebrating the achievements of women writers, editors and translators for over a decade. International Women’s Day 2019 is no exception. This year I have decided to highlight the work of women poets from my international index and to introduce my readers to some new Irish poets. I am very…
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“The Unfinished Poem” and other poems by Caroline Johnstone
The Unfinished Poem The house his mind once called its home Has gaping roofs, and paint-cracked eaves, Of forget-me-not blues The frosted brittle skeletons of history and wit served now As a porridge of forgetfulness, faint echoes haunt Sweet gentle kisses of remembrance Dementia’s wraiths roam shadowed emptied rooms, Herald long laments for lonely roads…
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Merry Christmas 2018 Dear Poethead Readers ♥
Poetry publishing will resume in January 2019. I will be reading and responding to your submissions in the intervening period. Thank you for your emails, your queries, your support and responses over this year of 2018. As always, the site remains open and accessible. Please visit An Index Of Women Poets and Contemporary Irish Women…
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Poems from ‘Available Light’ by Maria McManus
from ‘Émigrés’ 3. What is going on in your heart? Prisoners of war live here Throw off your gaudy vestments, spring’s best and brightest fig and let me see you naked and then, more naked still — Put your heart in my hearts cavity. Slip it in. Bring your worry beads if needs be. It’s not…
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‘Still Life With Hedgehog’ and other poems by Gaynor Kane
Still life with hedgehog The items have been arranged; carefully positioned, to vary height with texture and tone. Lit from the left. But what the artist hadn’t bargained for was that the sleeping urchin would unfurl; spine straightening, light-tipped quills oblique. To nimbly negotiate the spray of red roses, and feast on wedge of…
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A Celebration of Women’s Poetry for International Women’s Day 2018
‘A History of Love Letters’ by Seanín Hughes Miss said every time I told a lie, Baby Jesus had a nail hammered into his hand. She said I had a sad mouth, corners downturned, pointing to hell. Stephen with the p-h had a mouth like sunshine. I gave him a token: a tiny toy…
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Merry Christmas 2017 Dear Poethead Readers!
Poethead will return in January 2018, moving into its tenth year platforming women poets, their editors and their translators. I will be reading and responding to your submissions in the intervening period. Thank you for your emails, your queries, your support and responses over these 9 years. It is heartening and wonderful to have such…
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“The Bellmouth” and other poems by Gráinne Tobin
Internal Exile It was all too much. He took to his bed, and stayed there for ten years, begetting, however, several more children. She carried trays up and down the stairs and he lay hidden, staring out to sea. At night he watched the lighthouse winking through his shuttered window. All the money was…
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A Celebration of Irish Women Poets on Bloomsday 2017
“Canal Walk Home” by Gillian Hamill What is it About the power of the water To heal hurts Three lads sit on the boardwalk They hardly look like delicate sorts. And yet they gaze out Contemplate The rushing rippling mottles of the Undulating lake Can soothe souls. Car lights are reflected in…
Chris Murray 