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“Ardmore,” and Other Poems
Frank Farrelly This week Trasna is pleased to feature Irish poet, Frank Farrelly, who is based in Waterford city. Frank’s poems here are from his first full collection, The Boiler Room, and reflect on childhood, place and a growing towards an understanding of the complexities of life and living. The poem, Against the Clock, brings us to our current situation, living through the COVID pandemic, and here Farrelly brings a mature understanding of the qualities that might help us to bear and to “cheat this crimping of our time”. Ardmore for my parents Uprooted once again, this time south, you leave your home, your friends, drive for hours through lonely hills, darkened towns, your…
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“Take Me out to the Ballgame,” and Other Poems
K.T. Slattery This week Trasna is pleased to feature the work of K.T. Slattery. A native of Tennessee, who now lives in the West of Ireland, Slattery is a familiar with Transatlantic crossings. “My biggest regret / Moving across the wide ocean- / I missed that glorious day / Red Sox World Champions!!!!” We commend Slattery not just for her image-rich poetry, but for her good taste in rooting for the Red Sox. This fall, Hedgehog Press is publishing her debut poetry collection which will include “Take Me out to the Ballgame. Take Me out to the Ballgame Scorecard balanced on knees Cross pencil in hand Me next to you With my own scorecard Looking over your…
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Nollaig Shona Daoibh – Merry Christmas to All
From: “A Christmas Childhood,” Patrick Kavanagh (1943) “Outside the cow-house my motherMade the music of milking;The light of her stable-lamp was a starAnd the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle. A water-hen screeched in the bog,Mass-going feetCrunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel. My child poet picked out the lettersOn the grey stone,In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.” The above is an excerpt from Patrick Kavanagh’s “A Christmas Childhood.” The poem was first published in The Irish Press on the 24th of December, 1943. Photo by Christine O’Connor One Response to Nollaig Shona Daoibh – Merry Christmas to…
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CUMMISKEY ALLEY New and Selected Poems by Tom Sexton
Former Alaskan poet Laureate Tom Sexton’s latest volume of poetry is “Cummiskey Alley.” The collection is named after Lowell’s first Irishman, Hugh Cummiskey, who walked from Boston to Lowell with a group of Irish laborers. Cummiskey and many other Irish labors dug miles of canals in Lowell, and helped birth the nation’s first industrial revolution. The following poems explore the American experiences of immigrants, largely Irish, and their descendants. The book is available from loompress.com or amazon.com Amerikay, 1832, a Letter When your ship sails into Boston Harbor stay with those who are walking to Lowell By road or along the bank of the canal that goes from Charlestown to…
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The belated discovery of a role model: Nessa O’Mahony on Eavan Boland
The month of November, with its decreasing hours of daylight and lengthening nights, offers an opportunity to turn inwards. It is traditionally a month in Ireland when we remember those who have passed on, indeed the 1st and 2nd of November are known respectively as All Saints and All Souls days. On Trasna our focus this month will be on Irish writers who have passed on and who are remembered by contemporary writers and scholars. Our first post this month is by poet Nessa O’Mahony who writes of the influence of the poet Eavan Boland (1944 – 2020) on her own development as a writer, which led to her subsequently…
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“Woodbines and Tall Tales” and “A Christmas Wake”
by Bernie Condon Throughout October, Trasna will focus on the Celtic festival of Samhain, better known to Americans as Halloween. The holiday originated in Ireland and celebrates that time of year when the veil between this world and the next grows thin, and life seems more mysterious. This week we feature two poems by Bernie Condon, as well as her grandmother’s tale of the Banshee which inspired “Woodbines and Tall Tales.” The attached video was produced by Will McLellan of The Wood of O, and features Bernie retelling a family ghost story. Woodbines and Tall Tales My Grandmother smoked a woodbine Every night by the fire. “Tis the only little pleasure I have” She would splutter between puffs. Curled at…
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“Whatever you were” and Other Poems
Peter Sirr Throughout October, Trasna will focus on the Celtic festival of Samhain, known better to Americans as Halloween. The holiday originated in Ireland and celebrates that time of year when the veil between this world and the next grows thin, and life seems more mysterious. This week we feature Peter Sirr, a well-known poet, and now podcaster. He and his wife, poet Enda Wyley, are hosts of the lively program, Books for Breakfast, which airs every Thursday morning and includes a “Toaster Challenge” in which guests present a favorite book in the time it takes to make toast. In addition to select readings from his…
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“On the western shore of Lake Turkana” and other poems
by Monica Corish Before a neck injury in 2005 Irish poet Monica Corish spent many years travelling, living and working in Africa. Based now in Co. Leitrim, in her poems here Corish brings the reader from the sublime beauty of a night spent on a mountaintop near Lokichokio in northern Kenya in her poem, “On the western shore of Lake Turkana”, to a meditation on life stages in her poem, “Once I Saw a Lioness”. In the latter poem the narrator leaves behind exotic adventures and appreciates the grace of love, and the beauty of the quotidian, in mid-life. And finally her poem, “Maeve’s Version”, with accompanying video, grows out of Corish’s fascination with Irish…
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“Galápagos Islands” and Other Haikai and Poetry from “ELSEWHERE”
by Maeve O’Sullivan If 2020 is the year for armchair travel, Maeve O’Sullivan’s Elsewhere provides readers with an epic trip. Now in its fourth edition, it features haiku, haibun (a mix of prose and haiku), and long-form poetry. The writing captures a solo, around-the-world journey that took place in the fall of 2016 through the summer of 2017. The collection of poetry begins when she is 11, alone on the Dalkey platform peeling an orange. The poems that follow, like this hybrid fruit, are the product of far-off places. Throughout her travels, whether she’s contemplating the similarity of Ben Bulben to Cerro Baúl; or her mother’s handwriting to her grandfather’s; there is a…
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“Rupture” and other poems
Jean O’Brien This week Trasna is pleased to feature a new poem by Jean O’Brien, “Rupture,” and present two other readings. Jean is an award-winning poet residing in Dublin. She was a founding member of the celebrated Dublin Writers’ Workshop, and has taught in numerous other creative writing programs. She is the author of five books of poetry: The Shadow Keeper (1997); Dangerous Dresser (2005); Lovely Legs (2009); Merman (2012), and her most recent collection, Fish On A Bicycle, New & Selected Poems. Her work explores the personal, historical, and contemporary. Collectively, these poems are a reminder that objects can speak to us in ways deeper than language; that history, no matter how ancient, lives with us still; and that poetry, that most beautiful language, can reveal…
