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Poem of the Week: “Missing” by John McAuliffe
In “Missing,” John McAuliffe tackles the passing of time by painting the scenes of forgotten landscapes now reclaimed by nature. As the poem progresses, the theme shifts towards death and the return of all things to the Earth, before finishing on a more somber and mysterious tone hinting us back towards the title. Missing A…
Continue ReadingJohn McAuliffe in Conversation with Conor O’Callaghan
In honor of John McAuliffe’s Selected Poems, we’re revisiting his 2013 interview with Conor O’Callaghan in The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry III. In the interview, John McAuliffe discusses writing some of his earliest poems, relocating with his family to Manchester, what it means to write an “Irish poem,” and his relationship to American…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Heatwave” by Michael Longley
In The Slain Birds, Michael Longley doesn’t shy away from images and words of the pandemic and isolation. Infused with the minutiae of daily life and epistemological musings, this poem “Heatwave” brings to light bloody war scenes and clean, cool water—an acceptance of the elasticity when the mind and body seemingly move in opposite directions….
Continue ReadingMichael Longley Wins Feltrinelli International Poetry Prize
Michael Longley was recently announced as the recipient of the 2022 Feltrinelli International Poetry Prize. Among the major European honors for poetry, the Feltrinelli Prize is awarded every five years by the Italian Accademia dei Lincei and includes a €250,000 monetary grant. Past winners include W. H. Auden, Eugenio Montale, and John Ashbery. The Accademia…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Apple Blossom” by Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice’s “Apple Blossom” evokes a feeling of eternal optimism, of continuous appreciation of the world and all of its wonders. Where the “first apple” from the Garden of Eden, the cause of Adam and Eve’s fall, could easily be perceived as a symbol of hardship, MacNeice transforms it into a symbol of renewal and…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Street-Talk/Comhrá ar shráid” by Máire Mhac an tSaoi
On the flagged street
That day we happened to meet
You spoke to me so kindly
Asking courteously how I was,
That the air softened around me,
The dull impoverished city air,
With a little breeze you brought
From the west, from that place
By the sea where I first knew you…
Poem of the Week: “Another Monk and His Cat” by Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh
The final poem in Bone and Marrow/Cnámh agus Smior, “Another Monk and His Cat/Manach Eile agus a Chat” by Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, rounds out the anthology by harkening back to its opening poem, “I and White Pangur.” The latter is “[p]erhaps the most famous poem from medieval Ireland,” and Ní Ghearbhuigh’s contemporary interpretation of the subject…
Continue Reading“Better for the Mess”: Samuel K. Fisher on the Making of Bone and Marrow
After years of planning and production, Wake Forest University Press has published one of its most ambitious titles yet: Bone and Marrow/Cnámh agus Smior: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Medieval to Modern. Fully bilingual, this anthology presents 15 centuries of Irish-language poetry across its 900+ pages, including many new translations, contextual notes, and introductory…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Accept instruction, foolish youth” by Ádhamh Ó Fialáin
The writer of this poem from the late Middle Ages seems to criticize his young lord, but in fact praises him, concluding that even the lord’s wrongdoing pales in comparison to his greatness. That shift of logic reflects the intricacy of 14th-century politics, indicating a complicated and perhaps mysterious hierarchy. As Michelle O Riordan writes…
Continue ReadingBone and Marrow Book Tour
Wake Forest University Press will celebrate the publication of its latest anthology, Bone and Marrow/Cnámh agus Smior: An Anthology of Irish Poetry from Medieval to Modern, with a series of launch events organized with the anthology editors Samuel K. Fisher and Brian Ó Conchubhair. Planned events include a tour of Ireland from Belfast to Galway, with…
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