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MacNeice poem inspires Scottish song
Louis MacNeice is one of the inspirations for the Scottish group, Battlefield Band. MacNeice’s poem, “Bagpipe Music,” provides the lyrics for the song on the group’s newest album Room Enough for All, which has been nominated for an Independent Music Award in the category of “World Traditional Song.” You can read the poem just below, buy MacNeice’s Collected Poems here, and…
Continue ReadingPaula Meehan touring United States
Wake Forest University Press poet and current Ireland Professor of Poetry, Paula Meehan, has been charming audiences in the United States on her current reading tour. Earlier in March, Meehan appeared at HoCoPoLitSo’s Thirty-Sixth Annual Evening of Irish Music and Poetry. And on Thursday, April 3, Meehan will be reading at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. The reading…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Finit” by Máire Mhac an tSaoi
Finit Le seans a chuala uathu scéala an chleamhnais Is b’ait liom srian le héadroime na gaoithe— Do bhís chomh hanamúil léi, chomh domheabhartha, Chomh fiáin léi, is chomh haonraic, mar ba chuimhin liom. Féach feasta go bhfuil dála cháich i ndán duit, Cruatan is coitinne, séasúr go céile, Ag éalú i ndearúd le hiompú…
Continue ReadingThe Miraculous Máire Mhac an tSaoi
Wake Forest Press will publish The Miraculous Parish, a bilingual volume of Máire Mhac an tSaoi’s poetry this May. An activist and visionary, Mhac an tSaoi has paved the way for such female literary giants as Eavan Boland, Medbh McGuckian, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. The Miraculous Parish solidifies her reputation as the…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Starspill” by John Montague
There are few spectacles more enigmatic and awe-inspiring than the night sky. It can be hard to believe that the shimmering blots sprinkled into the abyss are light-years upon light-years out of our reach. John Montague’s poem “Starspill” captures the mystery of the glimmering cosmos drifting above our earth. Starspill That secret laughter which, on…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “To Posterity” by Louis MacNeice
To Posterity When books have all seized up like the books in graveyards And reading and even speaking have been replaced By other, less difficult, media, we wonder if you Will find in flowers and fruit the same colour and taste They held for us for whom they were framed in words, And will your…
Continue ReadingPoetry in Pop Culture: “poems change people’s understanding of what’s going on in the world”
Who said the technological age is taking people further away from literature? Perhaps it is true that millennials are reading fewer tangible books and more electronic books, but according to an article by The Irish Times this past weekend, poetry is popping up in pop culture all over the place. Maureen Kennelly, director of Poetry…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “An fuath”/”Hatred” by Máire Mhac an tSaoi
Hatred demands patience and deadened senses,
Hatred waits for its chance;
Hatred keeps a steady finger on the trigger
And won’t pull it till it sees the whites of the eyes
Like egg-whites-whites in its sights!
Hold On! The Holding Centre is here!
Harry Clifton’s newest volume, The Holding Centre: Selected Poems 1974-2004, has arrived! This book presents a thirty-year poetic trajectory for Clifton, a writer who has lived and worked between the secular and the religious, Eros and history, Ireland and elsewhere. Get your copy now! … You are not the first, you will not…
Continue Reading“The Importance of Breathing”: An Interview with Conor O’Callaghan
Nicole Fitzpatrick conducted this interview with Conor O’Callaghan in January 2014. Fitzpatrick is an M.A. English candidate at Wake Forest University and works as an intern at Wake Forest University Press. O’Callaghan lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina from 2005-2007 during which time he taught at Wake Forest University. Much of The Sun King connects to…
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