Thursday, March 16, 2023
Monday, March 6, 2023
AN IRISH POEM
As St. Patrick's Day is soon, I'm featuring a poem by an Irish poet, Vona Groake, one of the leading Irish poets of her generation.
Born in Mostrim in the Irish midlands in 1964, she's published eleven books of poetry. Groake is the former editor of Poetry Ireland Review. In 2012, Groake was elected a member of the Irish academy of the arts.
Here's her sonnet, FOLDEROL:
FOLDEROL
I have been walking by the harbour
where I see it’s recently sprayed
that Fred loves Freda, and Freda cops Fred.
Which reminds me of you, and the twenty-four
words for ‘nonsense’ I wrote on your thighs and back
(the night you came home from her house with some cock-
and-bull story of missed connections and loose ends)
with passion-fruit lipstick and mascara pens,
Including, for the record: blather, drivel, trash,
prattle, palaver, waffle, balderdash, gibberish, shit.
Thinking I had made a point of sorts, but not
so sure when I woke up to find my own flesh
covered with your smudged disgrace
while you, of course, had vanished without trace.
by Vona Groake
Other People's Houses, The Gallery Press
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
A poem by Charles Wright
AFTER READING TU FU, I GO OUTSIDE TO THE DWARF GARDEN by Charles Wright East of me, west of me, full summer. How d...
-
November Night by Adelaide Crapsey (1878 - 1914) Listen... With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp...
-
MAY-FLOWERS by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) Pink, small and punctual, Aromatic, low, Covert in April, Candid in May, Dear to the moss, Kn...
-
Here's a poem from my new book, Sunshine Has Its Limits, explaining marriage. THE MOTHER OF THE BRIDE EXPLAINS THE FACTS Think of marri...