David Wheatley, a leading Irish critic-poet of his generation (those born in the 70s), is one of the poets selected to appear in the latest - and from the looks of it, invaluable (or at least intriguingly copious) - anthology of "modern" Irish poetry to appear. Cynics might say these anthologies are as regular as "bloody buses" - but then again, if anthologies usefully update and revise canonical thinking, each one subtly or not so subtly, shifting the relations between poems, then, the more the merrier. Eyewear looks forward to reading this one, edited by Wes Davis.
A poem for my mother, July 15 When she was dying And I was in a different country I dreamt I was there with her Flying over the ocean very quickly, And arriving in the room like a dream And I was a dream, but the meaning was more Than a dream has – it was a moving over time And land, over water, to get love across Fast enough, to be there, before she died, To lean over the small, huddled figure, In the dark, and without bothering her Even with apologies, and be a kiss in the air, A dream of a kiss, or even less, the thought of one, And when I woke, none of this had happened, She was still far distant, and we had not spoken.
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