What Did I Do To Deserve You

Rachel Coventry

We exist so the universe

can experience loneliness

you may think if everything

is one, it will be content,

there will be no suffering

you are wrong

if there is just one thing

there can only be longing

with nothing to long for

so here we are, splinters

in the dark, no other purpose

but to break each other’s hearts.

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 119:

Edited by Vona Groarke

Poetry Ireland Review Issue 119 includes new poems by 48 poets including Frank Ormsby, John Kinsella, Rachel Coventry, Aifric Mac Aodha, Gerald Dawe, Alice Miller and Claire Potter. Also included are translations by Richard Begbie and Kirsten Lodge, an essay on Bishop, Lowell, Heaney and Grennan by David McLoghlin, and reviews of Paul Muldoon, Paul Durcan, Sarah Clancy, Medbh McGuckian, Kate Tempest, George the Poet, and many more. The issue also features photography by Hugh O'Conor, Dominic Turner, Sheila McSweeney, Fergus Bourke and John Minihan.

Editorial
Table of Contents (pdf)