Those April Fevers

Mary O'Donnell

• Publisher: Arc Publications
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781908376572
• eBook ISBN: 9781908376596
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Intergalactic, these poems travel from outer space via the moon to coffee tables at a luxuriously considered pace. In doing so they crackle with precision, dance between love and horror, curiosity and wonder.

The narrators are as diverse as their subjects, their tones ranging through wry, wistful, lusty and political. There is surrealism here, a world turned upside down by climate change, newly-charged mythologies that shake what we thought we understood about the order of things, and our relationships.

Mary O'Donnell has published five previous poetry collections, the most recent – The Ark Builders (2012) – from Arc, as well as three novels and two collections of short fiction.

AN IRISH LEXICON

(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U) [*]

Twilight, and the deer are grazing in the Phoenix Park.

Someone dreams of Arkle, Beara, Drumlins, Errigal.

A poet writes of Dubh Linn, Lonndubh, Belfast,

Glens of Imal, Antrim, The Downs,

Devil’s Bit, Vinegar Hill, The Hook, Bannow,

Ships, helmets, Ogham, Newgrange,

Dawn chorus, dawn light, grave passages,

Burren limestone, dolmen, capstone, and Dowth.

In school they speak of Flight, Grammar, Imram,

Lir, Marian, Naoise, Oriel, in the Dáil it’s Partnership,

Rights, salmon, Taoiseach / Toscairí.

Sea fog and frost are rolling in. Land holds its breath.

•

The SOMEONE, the TEACHER, the POET,

the POLITICIAN weave a dialogue of badger-bait,

bull-bait, dog-fight, and greyhound,

Cú, Cuchullan, Dun Dealgan, Eamhain Macha,

Tháinig long ó Valparaiso, tá tír na n-óg

Ag cúl an tí, tir alainn trina céile,

Mise Eire, Micheal Ó Suilleabhán,

The Long Hall, The Brazen Head, The Oliver

St. John Gogarty, The South Pole Inn, Omagh bomb,

Gugán Barra, Guests of the Nation, La Mon,

Oedipus Complex, Lough Swilly, Anna Livea,

National Museum, Síle na Gig, jigs and reels,

Riverdance, Liberty Hall, the Limerick pogrom of 1904,

the bee-loud glade, the beehive hut, Georgian Dublin,

Liberty Hall rebuilt and scaling the clouds,

Custom House, Guinness, the fighting boys of Annabelle’s,

Fairview Park, The George, Dawn Run, the Curragh.

Wren Women, Glencree, Synagogue, Germans and Jews,

Wicklow Jail, ghosts, Kilmainham,

Dawn executions in Dublin,

the Disappeared, Jean McConville, 1994, Abercorn, poteen,

the Black Pig’s Dyke, De Valera, Crazy Jane,

Old Croghan Man at rest in the his glass box,

clean as a newborn, renewed for viewing by millions.

Arigna, slit nipples, The Clonskeagh Mosque,

laundries, the Imam, Good Shepherd Convent,

CPRSI, Bessborough, the Protestants of Cork in 1921,

Monaghan 1974, Belfast Agreement, Fish on Friday,

Good Friday Agreement, that blackbird over Emy Lough,

gold at Clontibret, ghost estates in Laois, a haunted house

in Lucan, golden apples of the sun, whatever-you-say,

oil off Cork, Daghda, the Boyne, UB-65,

September 1913, extra points for Honours Maths,

Gaelscoileanna, Bodhráns and spoons,harp-making

in Portlaoise jail, piebalds in Jobstown, free buggies

for immigrants, free curtains, money-for-old-rope-

single-mothers-of-four, Arkle, Beara, a wherewithal

for bags of coal, turf, as a wretched frost descends.

And yet we have a fabled coast, where sea-cattle plunge

into the WAVES. Inland, hill-sprites on DRUMLINS,

pismires on the bog, all CELT and tribe in South Ulster,

further north there’s ERRIGAL, but speak not,

SAY-NOTHING, for words will never count so much as

gesture.

Flight of the Earls, O’Neill in Rome, Michael Robartes,

Kenny in D.C., Irish artists in New York,

Bringing-It-All-Over-There, the knowledge,

the Gathering, the sliver of salmon, the sucked thumb,

Fairtrade, Taltainn, free-range eggs, free-loaders,

curlews, buzzards, Lissadell.

Twilight, and the deer are grazing in the Phoenix Park.

Someone dreams of Arkle, Beara, Drumlins, Errigal.

On the Curragh, whin bushes dream, and horses

are stabled for the night. Frost bites down.

•

CELTS

The exotic myth of origin, spread its cloak

from Eire to Scotland, Wales, Brittany, Galicia.

Even today, defies the MONGREL MIX.

I’m an Irishwoman (you’re Irish? I love

the way you people speak!). Then part Scotwoman,

part Norman-maid, part O’Donnell on ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Baltic Amber
• Waking
• Beyond Myths
• Pleasure Principles
• Markings, 2060
• Driving Invisible Through a World of Mirrors
• Marriage Advice, 1951
• Spring Funeral
• At a Wedding, the Stranger
• View Towards a Bridge
• Moon Viewing Point
• Woman, 1950
• Hockney
• A Peasant Wedding
• Splitting the Difference
• Chronicle of the Oil Wars
• Sea Life in St. Mark’s Square
• Mapping Europe After Global Warming
• Goth Persephone’s Mother Asks Her to do the Messages
• Summer Evening
• Buzzard
• Pleasure
• Waiting
• Feeding the Crone
• The Artists are Sleeping
• The World is Mine
• Forest, Snow, a Train
• Consuming Passions
• The Cosmos Ticked Silently
• Wolf-Month
• Hush Now, it’s January
• Hungary
• Galician Watch-dog
• The Parts
• Baby Boy, Quaryat al Beri
• A Boy in Gaza
• Wicklow
• Woman of my Dreams
• Waiting outside Bewleys
• Sister-Trade
• The Wigs
• Eden
• At 35,000 Feet
• Dublin
• An Irish Lexicon
• Boutique Hotel
• Five a.m.
• Old Croghan Man Knocking at the Window
• On Fitzwilliam, After a Budget
• Uncertainties, 2011
• Biographical Note