Category: Northern Irish Women Poets
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A Celebration of Irish Women Poets on Bloomsday 2016
The Middle of April by Fiona Bolger After Robert Hass i whan that Aprille with his shoures soote the droghte of March hath perced to the roote my grandfather quotes Chaucer from the vinyl ii he knows more now we will too soon iii in the spring pelmet of green…
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Four voices confront the absence of women in Irish poetry
I have endured the scholastic training worthy of someone of learning. I am versed in the twelve divisions of poetry and the traditional rules. I am so light and fleet I escape from a body of men without snapping a twig, without ruffling a braid of my hair, I run under branches as high…
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‘Cry Oceans’ by Mary Cecil
Cry Oceans Cry oceans and weep the seas Where waves flow over The endless motions of life The swimming perfection that flees The Armageddon of destruction By all means possible The mechanisation of death The beginning of the end For whales and tuna to consume The mercury to garnish The insatiable greed…
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“Nadelah” and other poems by Geraldine O’Kane
Hitting to Hurt (after ‘The Leaping Lamb’) Everybody saw us as the bull and the lamb, that is how I hid for so long. He was a chunk of a man; I sliced him to bits with my words, buried him with shame. I am sorry for using such callous language, I’ll…
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‘Poem’ by Mary Cecil
Sometimes I think, do I write as a woman? Are my thoughts so different? What concerns woman and not men Do they have a gravitas I do not? Is the world I experience The search for truth To flay a heart and dissect a thought Should I be remote, detached as a diary? …
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‘Lepus’ by Stephanie Conn
Lepus Their collective noun is ‘drove’ though they mostly live alone, content with a solitary life, or become one of a pair growing brave in the spring; chests puffed out, as if fluid has filled the cavities and dropsy has caused a long-forgotten frenzy, that gives rise to a meadow dash…
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“Delta” and other poems by Stephanie Conn
Wie is de vrouw on de overkant? Who is the woman on the other side? It was the only phrase that stuck in months of pre-trip conversation class. As I struggled with the syntax, it became clear you were a natural, spending hours in the lab perfecting your grasp. You couldn’t wait…
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‘Crystal Clear’ and other poems by Eileen T O’Neill
Crystal Clear She sits alone within her own cocoon, Shrouded from her entire surroundings. Eyes stare without seeing today’s world, The sound of talking is silent in her mind. Her crystal lamp is abandoned from care, All belongings are deserted from attention. Her perspective is internally facing forever, Her gaze is transparent in its…
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Mary Cecil’s Rathlin Island poems
Adagio for Strings My heart that soared and climbed To other realms of fantasy That longs to find the answers To everything To dream those endless dreams To drift in waves of oceans Of oneness complete And really know In pools of beautiful thought Transport my soul Where heaven will be And…
Chris Murray 