Webbing

Conor Cleary

– for Toby

what would you say

if it turned out

I was a giant

mechanical

spider who

didn’t really

like the things we

both said we liked

if on further

inspection you

were to discover

my insides are

chock-full of

counterfeit silk

and I hated

your friend Rachel

what if my gums

concealed big steel

fangs needed to eat

that retracted

seamlessly

that envenomed

that were very

much part of me

I hope that you’d

take a step back

think rationally

try to see things

as seen from

my perspective

hung upside down

from the ceiling

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.