Poetry of Place Part Two

Round Bales, Meath

A trip to Westmeath today brought more awareness of place. How did all these areas get their names? Churches, graveyards, village pumps and even fields full of round bales of hay seemed miraculous. My friend explained to me that an area called "Clondalee More" means the "The Meadow of the Two Big Calves". In Mullingar I heard a man busking outside a shopping centre

Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.
Tá Gráinne Mhaol ag teacht thar sáile
óglaigh armtha léi mar gharda,
Gaeil iad féin is ní Francaigh ná Spáinnigh
's cuirfidh siad ruaig ar Ghallaibh.

Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Now that summer's coming!
Grace O'Malley is coming over the sea,
Armed warriors as her guard,
Only Gaels are they, not French nor Spanish...
and they will rout the foreigners!

Harking back to the previous post's conquest and battle in defending territory and homeland, why are peoples always being transposed? Does naming a place grant ownership? There is great power in language. Is the pen mightier than the sword? In the end hearts and minds are only won in communication. Language is the great bridge between minds, at least until thought becomes readable.

A most interesting site I have found is poetryatlas.com which maps the world in poetry. If you search for Meath you will find locations of some famous poems about the county. In his essay A Shifting Sense of Place Jeremy Richards wonders where is the poet's sense of place today?

"In their anthologized visions of place, classic poets could stroll through an orchid garden, stumble past a church, or kneel in the grass and feel sated and grounded. But today, where is the poet’s sense of place? Itinerant, polluted, untethered? Tweeted and Foursquared? Or is it still Romantic, still finding solace in nature, tripping over the transcendent on every morning stroll?"

The rise of digital humanities has led the poet online, and especially during the pandemic. But that could be a discussion for another day. I've ended up here in this place, where I never intended on going. Eureka! Or something like that! Not all who wander are lost.

Poetry of Place

 

Tintern Abbey, JMW Turner, 1794

I'm very grateful to be able to spend time with my thoughts, a candle and the blog tonight. It's been a really warm, sunny day so the coolness of the night is most welcome as it slips in through the window with the light of some stars. I've been considering the poetry of place as I have been commissioned by Poetry Ireland to write a poem about Dunshaughlin as its Poetry Town Laureate. The poem is nearing completion thanks to a few dawn rises earlier in the week but I want to challenge myself to go just a little deeper, and further into context.

Nature and place have innately informed my work, be it the land as home, or the sea as something more alien or exotic. The county of Meath can hardly be removed from the ancient and its ruins, which continually try to tell their story. Ireland as an island has a sense of otherness, and connection with Great Britain, Europe and the rest of the World. A metaphor for emigration that has remained with me is that of a plant being uprooted and replanted in different soil. That plant must really want to survive. Roots, we must have our roots. Whole histories and cultures have been written on this attachment to the homeland; the transplantation of the African Amercican slave, penal colonies in Australia, the conquistadors, the empires of Europe, war. These sea-changes seem somewhat aberrations in hindsight, but what is mankind's nature but to explore and it should be the human quest to not lose the essence of goodness.

Heidegger posited that "...Poetically Man Dwells...", that creation and thought become a kind of building. He continues in an essay 

"But when there is still room left in today's dwelling for the poetic, and time is still set aside, what comes to pass is at best a preoccupation with aestheticizing, whether in writing or on the air. Poetry is either rejected as a frivolous mooning and vaporizing into the unknown, and a flight into dreamland, or is counted as a part of literature. And the validity of literature is assessed by the latest prevailing standard."

I would say that this is when poetry becomes an act of faith. To not have some kind of faith is to be too soon annihilated. Heidegger based some of his essay on a poem by Friedrich Holderlin called In Lovely Blue.

In any case these are some thoughts on place in poetry tonight. I am reminded of a project carried out by Maria Isakova Bennett for her Coast to Coast to Coast magazine. For the Aldeburgh issue poets connected through the element and space of water to join around the UK. This entwining of people and place through poetry is what makes Poetry Town such a special event. My poem from the Aldeburgh issue, below. 

Trim, The Banks of The Boyne, 28/07/19, 2 pm

Twenty years have passed since I bought this copy

of Wordsworth’s collected poems, 

a thick volume used in assignment. 

How the words of Tintern Abbey mean more to me now,

in their depths are rocks worn by the river of time.

- But the water asks me to not dwell

in looking on the turbulent, frothing current

the Oilliphéist bound for the even wilder ocean,

on muffled sirens calling me back – 

These sacred waters of home glisten,

golden-like pools collect by the banks, coil reeds and grasses.

Quiet cattle stoop to drink past the abbey where I have known

cormorants to rest. It is the heron who offers his wisdom today,

long-legged, once noted by F.R. Higgins in Father and Son.

Orla Fay

The Oilliphéist (from Irish oll, meaning 'great', and péist, meaning 'worm, fabulous beast, monster, reptile') is a dragon-like monster in Irish mythology. The Scottish Gaelic form is Uilepheist. – Wikipedia 

REM at Slane Castle

There has been a lot of coverage in the papers about the 40th anniversary of concerts at Slane Castle. The first was held in August 1981 when Thin Lizzy headlined and a young U2 performed. I remember the motorbikes roaring to Slane on the Trim to Navan road to see Bruce Springsteen and Queen in the 1980s. My first concert was REM in July 1995. I wrote this poem about it a couple of years ago and edited it tonight.

REM at Slane Castle, July 1995

 

I danced around the hill triumphantly

to Losing my Religion, 

sang the lyrics with conviction.

When darkness came fireworks fizzed.

Earlier Oasis had left their microphones on, 

Liam Gallagher exiting the stage 

a classic villain,

to blaring, screeching, 

drum piercing scratches.

Belly played Feed the Tree

which I loved from some grunge

compilation album my older brother owned.

It had been a year since Kurt died.

I sewed patches adorned 

with his face to my denim schoolbag.

I thought I knew everything.

Nightswimming was yet to deserve

a quiet night, and everybody would hurt.

Orla Fay 

Ledwidge Day 2021 at Islandbridge

 

It was a beautiful morning in The War Memorial Gardens where Inchicore Ledwidge Society hosted last year's postponed Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award ceremony. It was a new experience for me and I loved the rose garden setting. Afterwards Liam O'Meara laid a wreath in honour of poet Francis Ledwidge and those lost to war. 

A short video of some pictures taken above.

The Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award has gone from strength to strength and details of how to enter this year's prize are below.