Twenty Eight

Leontia Flynn

Government servants with your dinky backpacks,

cohorts of bullshit, at its beck and call:

friend-of-my-youth, and you, my bosom buddy,

how is it going? Have you had your fill

of corporate wine and state-subsidized hunger

fiddled expenses, claim forms and books cooked

to show some profit? Ah, well I remember,

back in my time, I also cooked the books

for a boss – who then proceeded to bend me down

and slowly, but systematically, fuck me over

while being simultaneously in turn,

yes, thoroughly shafted by his manager ...

an even bigger cock. God help us all

taught thus to aspire to the ‘professional’ classes:

what blots on humanity. May they rot in hell.

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.