Category
Poetry
-
12.01.11Sneachta – SnowSneachta le Máire Nic a’Daird Nach deas í an tuath lena cota bog ban ina codladh go sáimh sa sneachta geal glan. Snow by Máire Nic a’Daird How lovely is the world with its soft white coat, sleeping snugly in the bright, clean snow. It's not the first snow of the season--we had an icy shot across the bow a couple weeks ago that left a sleety, slushy mess on the roads for a few days--but this morning's dusting has a nicer feel to it. The weather forecast calls for cold and colder temperatures, so perhaps this dusting will stick around for a while. I need to get the studded tires on ...
-
03.17.11Gan do Chuid Éadaigh – Without Your ClothesA Happy St. Patrick's Day to all! I have to admit that this isn't actually my favorite day of the year; downtown St. Paul, where I work, is hub of St. Pat's festivities in the Twin Cities, and Rice Park was awash in all manner of green tchotchke and inebriated revelry. I went to the parade, of course, but just long enough to see the Brian Ború pipe band and scout for in-laws (none spotted, mission accomplished). Instead, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by sitting down with some Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Here's my attempt at translating "Gan do Chuid Éadaigh." Gan do ...
-
03.02.11Faoileán – SeagullAccording to my site stats, I pretty regularly get visitors here looking for a translation of this poem. I'm not sure if it's a testament to the popularity of this poem, certainly Michael Davitt's best-known, or to the fact that it's part of the curriculum in Irish language classes. I tend to suspect the latter is a big part of it: the searches tend to cluster around the beginning of the school year, and originate mostly from Dublin and its suburbs. So in the interest of both helping out some scoláirí and giving Michael Davitt a wider (though not much) audience ...
-
01.15.11The Conservation of Memory #poemThe universe stuffs each in its unruly attic, ready to dole out in some other form like a grandmother’s wigs for Mardi Gras. The Conservation of Memory by Bethany Reid
-
01.23.10Dún – StrongholdDún le Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill Id ghéaga daingne ní bhfaighfidh mé bás choiche ní thiocfaidh orm aon sceimhle, ní líonfaidh orm anbhá. Ní chloisfidh mé ag gíoscán ins an oíche fearsad na cairte fuafaire a ghluaiseann trí pháirc an áir. Is dún nó daingean iad do ghéaga i mo thimpeall do ghuailne leathana am chosaint ar a lán. Ag cuardach fothaine dom ó gharbhshíon na cinniúna tá gairdín foscaidh le fáilt idir do dhá shlinneán. Is sa ghairdín sin tá beacha is ológa ta mil ar luachair ann is na crainn go léir faoi bhláth i dtús an fhomhair mar ní thagann aon gheimhridh is gaoth an tseaca ní luíonn air anáil. Is lasmuigh dínn tá críocha is ciníocha ag bruíon is ag bunú ...
-
08.08.09the Poetic Clearing-house AssociationI love this hare-brained scheme for a poetry bank, delivered generously by C. Dale Young's Avoiding the Muse, as expounded by The Idiot (a character of John Kendrick Bangs' invention) in Harper's at the turn of the last century: What I'd like to see established is a sort of Poetic Clearing-house Association. Supposing I opened up an office in Wall Street – a Bank for Poets in which all writers of verse could deposit their rhymes as they write them, and draw against them, just as they do in ordinary banks with their money. The Poetic Clearning-house Association works a bit like ...
-
05.27.09Ambulocetus considers the seaSomeday it will be ours, that wide expanse of empty sea, and we will be gods in its secret abyss; unfettered by gravity, we will grow immense and fill the oceans with our rumbling calls. I can feel my legs in the deep dark dissolve, swept away by waves as my tail becomes a mighty fluke to drive me to new depths, new heights, a propulsion impossible on this awkward airy land. We will nudge our young deeper into these lagoons, chase them far from land and make them swim, demand that they conquer for us deep kingdoms. Inspired by an "In Our Times" broadcast about the evolution of whales; ambulocetus, "the walking whale," lived on the shores of the Tethys Sea 50 million ...
-
04.30.09HatsWhen I was eight, I kept a picture on my wall of my father, another man, and a sea of smiling children. Behind them was a helicopter (black in my picture, green in Asia) and in front of them (though not in my picture) were little homes of straw and mud. In my picture, he was not much older than I am now. Not much older, as I walk along Caille Duarte, stepping over goat shit and mango pits, greeted by four little boys yelling, "Hola, Miguel! Miguel!" I lose my straw hat to them, I juggle stones and mangoes for them, I chase them over cracked pavement and past rusted barbed wire covered with wet clothes. They chatter at me, as ...
-
04.29.09HaitiFrom the border hill, surrounded on three sides by Haitian mountains, I can see the prison, the old mansion, the market on my side of the island. On the other side, nearly invisible in the dust, is a twin prison, a twin market town. Our rain and our sugar can cutters come together from Haiti, twin black clouds bringing the French island's wealth to eastern Hispañola. And Haiti becomes dry and lonely, like an old tin cup turned over until all its blood has dripped out. Haiti's colors explode in Santo Domingo's streets, purple-skinned boys asking, in patois-tinted voices, "Tengo dinero? Tengo dinero?" Purple-painted canvases declaring, with their sharp shapes and rounded lines, that life was vibrant in the ...
-
04.28.09DroughtI. The bean plants fall into the cracked clay like the damned into some pit, their dusty leaves writhing arm-like in displays of supplication. When the mud from the last rain dried it buckled up in the middle of the street like a small range of sharp mountains stamped into craters by goats' feet. Drought clings to my hair and shirt when I walk along the mountain road, turns to thin mud when I stand under the rusty pipe in Mercedes' shower. II. The expectant sky breathes hard and shallow, moist air from a straining bellows shaking dry cornstalks. When the drenching birth of rain finally comes, we all run out to midwife the storm, Bachanal dancing. The rain feels ...
recent posts
follow:- RSS