The Radiographer
Hear the buzzhum to catch those ghostly shadows
Like a perfume plume
you arrived in the world one Bloomsday –
a button-nosed blonde with a mind of her own.
You slept in a bed for a crib
drank Coca-Cola not infant milk
had a candour at three that was unparalleled
broke news of death with a jolt of coldness
opened doors to poets in Decembers
with Too late! They’re dead!
You ate your meals with a mermaid’s dingo hopper
watched horrors each night before bed
attuned yourself to the earth’s core
listened for each murmur, focused on each movement.
Your acuteness
lived up to every meaning of your name
Katie: frank and scientific.
You netted each prize throughout school
engineered a loop road to ease congestion
created flow in one direction
found the radix of each problem
like Röntgen, produced, detected and saw through.
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 122:
Fifty years after his passing the poet Patrick Kavanagh is remembered in Poetry Ireland Review 122, in a perceptive essay by Eavan Boland which invokes Chinua Achebe and Anthony Cronin, among others, to position Kavanagh in a pre-eminent place among the poets of his time, and ours. Richard Murphy is also celebrated in a fascinating interview ranging over all of his ninety years, in which he discusses a number of his poems – reproduced in the issue – framed by their social and political contexts. There are new poems from John O'Donnell, Mary Montague, Julie Morrissy, Colm Breathnach, and Moya Cannon, among many others, Alvy Carragher is our Featured Poet, and titles subjected to critical scrutiny include recent work from Paddy Bushe, Jacob Polley, Paula Meehan, Rachael Boast, and Matthew Sweeney. Liam Harrison provides a perceptive essay on Derek Mahon's connections with artist Edvard Munch, while the images in this issue are provided by artists from the Olivier Cornet Gallery, a neighbour to Poetry Ireland on Parnell Square.