Skip to main content

Poem by Michael S. Begnal

Eyewear is very glad to welcome Michael S. Begnal (pictured) this week - a week in which I returned from Galway, Ireland, where for so long he worked and wrote and was such a a poetic influence. This is something of a milestone, as he is also our 151st featured poet!

Begnal is the author of three poetry collections - in reverse chronological order: Ancestor Worship (Salmon, 2007), Mercury, the Dime (Six Gallery Press, 2005), and The Lakes of Coma (Six Gallery Press, 2003).

He is included in the anthologies Breaking the Skin: New Irish Poetry (Black Mountain Press, 2002) and, in the Irish language, Go Nuige Seo (Coiscéim, 2004, 2005). He is also included in the essay collection, Avant-Post: The Avant-Garde under “Post-” Conditions (Litteraria Pragensia, 2006), and edited Honeysuckle, Honeyjuice: A Tribute to James Liddy (Arlen House, 2006). Begnal was also formerly the editor of the Galway, Ireland-based literary magazine, The Burning Bush (1998-2004).


The Fluctuations

THE FLUCTUATIONS are real,
they warp you sere & black,
they sear you from the inside
that part of the body

the FLUCTUATIONS,
a transmigration of soul,
lost genealogies, rocky estuary, the Iron Language,
rain, a structuring gloom — GONE

the fluctuations/
(running through the trenches)
a torrent in a dark room, breath pouring through,
alone in that room don’t know how again

(it’s the fluctuations)
the zephyrs in the night,
the curtains blowing in somebody else’s window,
the charry dry alleys

death & loss dripping from eyes,
death & loss seeping from lungs,
death & loss in your twisted black guts like shit,
in the stark stochastic scald


poem by Michael S. Begnal

Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
A great poem and a great site.Thanks for guiding me here. Liam MacS.
Fri Mar 20, 10:58:00 pm 2009
Sheila said…
I was at a dinner party last night and the talk turned to poetry. Someone asked why the Irish had so many great poets and an Irishman answered that it was because the Irish have nothing but their language. I'm thinking about this. Meanwhile, Thank you for directing me to Michael Begnal.
Sun Mar 22, 11:13:00 pm 2009
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?
3 comments
Read more

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".
1 comment
Read more

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise
1 comment
Read more