Bedsit

A.M. Cousins

Once, the city stood ankle deep in snow

and, in a single bed in Rathmines,

we listened to the joyful news –

sombrely announced at the scrag end

of universal bad tidings –

that schools had closed until further notice.

We walked to Morton’s for butter and fruit, sugar and spice.

My cowboy boots let in wet, your work-boots weathered all.

Rolling pastry with a beer bottle

we raised a blizzard of our own.

I filled sweet shortcrust with cloves and apple,

challenged flatland’s drag of Vesta curry and cigarettes

as molten caramel flowed,

burned the rented oven.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 121:

Edited by Eavan Boland

Eavan Boland's first issue as editor of Poetry Ireland Review aims to encourage a conversation about poetry which is 'noisy and fractious certainly ... but a conversation nevertheless that can be thrilling in its reach and commitment'. There are new poems from Thomas McCarthy, Jean Bleakney, Wendy Holborow, Paul Perry, Aifric Mac Aodha, and many others, while the issue also includes work from Brigit Pegeen Kelly, with an accompanying essay on the poet by Eavan Boland. Eavan Boland also offers an introduction to the work of poet Solmaz Sharif, while there are reviews of the latest books from Simon Armitage, Peter Sirr, Lo Kwa Mei-en, and Vona Groarke, among others. PIR 121 also includes Theo Dorgan's elegiac tribute to his friend John Montague – a canonical poet, in contrast to the emerging poets Susannah Dickey, Conor Cleary and Majella Kelly, who contribute new work and will also read for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series as part of ILFD 2017.