Blume, Blume, Blume
Crowing on my shoulders Neasa gets the words wrong,
as the frogs on her bus go frog, frog, frog, the trees go
tree, tree, tree on the overgrown top deck of her song,
taking the backroad to crèche between dried daffodils
and an actual bus driver leant on his bus for a smoke,
where the lay-by hums with flies and pelts of roadkill,
where lockdown-addled drivers tip covid-tame rabbits
for a tanning by maggots among dandelions the yellow
of Neasa’s coat, a duckling yellow, and she surveys it,
the bus and pelts and flowers as she sings, sings, sings
her own name, what she does is her, as a rose is a rose,
at the reins of my hair, thrice-pulsing queen of spring.
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 134 – Sold out:
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, William Keohane, Gabriel Rosenstock, Alvy Carragher, Greta Stoddart, and Ciaran Berry are just some of the poets publishing new work in Poetry Ireland Review 134, edited by Colette Bryce. The issue also contains reviews of 18 recent titles, including the latest from Michael Longley, Martina Evans, Rachel Long, Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal, Matthew Rice, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, and Moya Cannon's Collected Poems.
Tríona Ní Shíocháin contributes an essay, 'Foremothers', a revelatory account of a "hidden history ... of women’s oral poetic traditions", excerpted from A History of Irish Women's Poetry; Ben Keatinge looks at the sonnet – a form defined by Harry Clifton in Trumpet 8 as the 'pocket masterpiece' – from an Irish perspective; and Tom French pays tribute to the late and great Belfast maestro, Ciaran Carson.
'Singles Archive' is the title of the cover image, by Colin Martin, who provides all of the superb artwork for this issue of Poetry Ireland Review.