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Poem 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To Posterity When books have all seized up like the books in graveyards And reading and even speaking have been replaced By other, less difficult, media, we wonder if you Will find in flowers and fruit the same colour and taste They held for us for whom they were framed in words,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…
Continue ReadingSnow, Joyce and Voicemails: A Closer Look at Conor O’Callaghan’s “Three Six Five Zero”
Today’s snow-blanketed Wake Forest University campus. How does Conor O’Callaghan seamlessly connect a snowy North Carolinian landscape, James Joyce and voicemails? Ripe with isolation, introspection, recovery and renewal, O’Callaghan’s latest collection, The Sun King, whispers secrets and sings the emergence of light born of the soul’s darkest moments. Technology flashes in and out of The Sun King, yet O’Callaghan’s…
Continue ReadingMedbh McGuckian speaks about The High Caul Cap: “the cap is an end and a beginning”
In today’s Irish Echo, Peter McDermott interviews Medbh McGuckian on identity, inspiration, Seamus Heaney, and why she reads books upside down. McDermott’s article offers a glimpse into the poet’s thoughts behind her most recent book, The High Caul Cap, which WFUP published this past autumn. Here’s a link to the interview: McGuckian speaks candidly, revealing that the crux of the volume…
Continue ReadingPoetry By Heart
Earlier this week, the Poetry Book Society (UK) announced that Sinéad Morrissey is the winner of the TS Eliot Poetry Prize. We published Morrissey in our first Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry and The New North: Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland. The Independent asks Morrissey if she is in favor of students in school learning poetry by…
Continue ReadingWhat’s Irish for “Merry Christmas to You”?
(Celtic Knot Christmas Wreath from the very impressive Nacho Grandma’s Quilts. Check out the other Celtic Knot designs while you’re there.) Nollaig shona duit! (Say “null-ig hun-nuh dit.”) “Nollaig” (which also means “Christmas” in Scottish Gaelic) derives from the Latin “natalica” for “birthday” and can sometimes be used as a personal name, like “Noel.” We hope…
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