The Snowfall Room

Medbh McGuckian

The mesmerizing weather

Has a very rich yellowing

Like the sky over Verdun

And Railway Hollow Wood.

Feet over leaves in the thin

Remnant of air

Try to account

For the fallen leaves

Or what happened

To our promised moon –

Five great dyings

Blurring their stars together.

The change of a certain

Sound makes the star

More and more

Peachlike, the earth

Would find itself

Inside a star,

The heart of a star.

The starlanes littered

With the eyes of stars,

But fewer blue-white

Stars. Archaic sparrows

Probe the crowded starfields

Of the flying angel

Painter, whose musical

Salvation is how to find the

North, to touch her leaves.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 120:

Edited by Vona Groarke

Vona Groarke's final issue as editor is packed with new poems from leading contemporary poets, including Simon Armitage, Sinéad Morrissey, Colette Bryce, Paul Muldoon, Sean O'Brien and Caitríona O'Reilly. Books reviewed include new work from Derek Mahon, Bernard O'Donoghue, Rita Ann Higgins, Martina Evans, Denise Riley and the 2016 Forward Prize winner Vahni Capildeo. The centrepiece of the issue is an interview with Paul Muldoon in which the Armagh maestro shares his thoughts on subjects as diverse as public surveillance, the economic down-turn, and the exclamation mark. The cover image is by photographer Justyna Kielbowicz, and the issue also contains award-winning artwork from Sven Sandberg, Aoife Dunne, Jane Rainey, and Michelle Hall. Instead of an editorial, Vona herself answers the questionnaire she put to the contributors of Poetry Ireland Review Issue 118: The Rising Generation.