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Poem of the Week: “Away” by Vona Groarke
Away We have our own smallholding: persimmon tree, crawl space, stoop, red earth basement, ceiling fans, a job. Hours I’m not sure where I am, flitting through every amber between Gales and Drumcliffe Road. I paint woodwork the exact azure of a wave’s flipside out the back of Spiddal pier and any given morning pins…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Let it Go” by Brendan Kennelly
This time of year is usually devoted to graduation ceremonies, a celebration of taking the next step, whatever that may be. Here’s to the next step. Congratulations to all of the graduates for the year of 2014. Let it Go Let it go Out of reach, out of sight, Out of the door and the window,…
Continue ReadingThe End of the Line
The temperature is high, the pollen is present, and graduation is just around the corner. However, with the arrival of springtime blossoms comes the departure of most of our staff. Interns Nicole, Maura, Amanda, Julie and Mike are all graduating, and Candide is retiring from Assistant Director. And while I feel inclined to use the…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Punctuation” by Ciaran Carson
By Michael J. Bennett (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Punctuation This frosty night is jittering with lines and angles, invisible trajectories: Crackly, chalky diagrams in geometry, rubbed out the instant they’re sketched, But lingering in the head. The shots, the echoes, are like whips, and when you flinch, You don’t know where it’s coming from. This…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Down” by Brendan Kennelly
why does a poem
always
go
down
the page
like
a shooting
star
Poem of the Week: “Spring Song” by Peter Fallon
It was as if
someone only had to say
Abracadabra
to set alight
the chestnut
candelabra.
Poem of the Week: “Bessboro” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
This is what I inherit—
It was never my own life,
But a house’s name I heard
And others heard as warning
Poem of the Week: “At Dublin Zoo” by Paula Meehan
At Dublin Zoo A four-year-old Seeing elephants For the first time ‘But they’re not blue’ –Paula Meehan, from Painting Rain (2009)
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “September” by Conor O’Callaghan
September It must be cliché to think, however brief, that light on a wall and our voices out in the open are the pieces we shall look upon in retrospect as a life. There is a danger of circumstance smothering even the smallest talk. If a breeze shakes another colour from the trees we say…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Ship of Death” by Kerry Hardie
After an unexpected Easter Monday hiatus, we have returned with another poem for National Poetry Month. Ship of Death for my mother Watching you, for the first time, turn to prepare your boat, my mother; making it clear you have other business now— the business of your future— I was washed-through with anger. It was…
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