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Poem of the Week: “… a spell to bless the silence.”
John Montague’s most recent volume, Speech Lessons, is full of lyrical poems about childhood, memory, and family. Our selection for today stands out from this subject matter as a poem about poetry itself. Silences for Elizabeth 1 Poetry is a weapon, and should be used, though not in the crudity of violence. It is a prayer before an…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week, with congrats to Conor O’Callaghan
I wanted his sky-blue Ford, its sheetrock, its transmission issues.
I listened to his low-down yodelling skimming sunk studs
and snake rattles like wind chimes round his mantle in the hills
and parables waiting for windows to arrive where some lunchbox
was always asked what sort of lunchbox he took Roy for.
Poem of the Week: “Pier” by Vona Groarke
Only a few weeks remain before students return to campus, and our hottest days seem to be behind us. As we desperately hang on to summer, we offer Vona Groarke’s poem, “Pier,” as a celebration of the freedom and elan that summertime allows. Pier Speak to our muscles of a need for joy. …
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “…even a still life is alive…”
“The Ray,” Jean-Baptiste-Simeone Chardin (1728) Nature Morte (Even so it is not so easy to be dead) As those who are not athletic at breakfast day by day Employ and enjoy the sinews of others vicariously, Shielded by the upheld journal from their dream-puncturing wives And finding in the printed word a multiplication of their…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Sleep and Spiders” by Caitríona O’Reilly
We are looking forward to kicking off next year’s publishing calendar with Caitríona O’Reilly’s newest volume. But since it’ll be many months until we can share those poems with you, we chose one of her poems, “Sleep and Spiders,” from The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Volume I. As the editor of that volume…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Calendar Custom” from The Sun-fish
Calendar Custom What is the right name of that small red flower? It’s everywhere, spilling down over the stones In the sun, every year at just this time. The colour dims for a minute as the line of dust Follows the loud white van uphill, and just now The girls in the bar offer me…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Proposal” by Ciaran Carson
Proposal It happened over an apple. We were in a market, sunshine and August showers flickering through the glazed roof over a barrel of apples, green with a blush of red, the dew still seeming to glisten on them. You picked one up. Try it and see, Miss, said the vendor. You nodded, and bit…
Continue ReadingThe “perfect acoustic” of The Stairwell
Few moments are more exciting at the Press than when we are getting started on a new book. This fall, we’ll publish Michael Longley’s tenth collection, The Stairwell, and preparations are well underway. We’ve done a first read, gathered the cover image and copy, and sent files off to the designer. The title of the book comes from the…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Not Weeding” by Paula Meehan
Nettle, bramble, shepherd’s purse –
refugees from the building site
that was once the back field,
Poem of the Week: “…the rest will take care of itself.”
The River When I was angry, I went to the river– New water on old stones, the patience of pools. Let the will find its own pace Said a voice inside me I was learning to believe, And the rest will take care of itself. The fish were facing upstream, tiny trout Suspended like souls,…
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