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Best of Irish Poetry 2010
Editor: Matthew Sweeney

Songs of Earth and Light
Barbara Korun poems translated by Theo Dorgan

Done Dating DJs
by Jennifer Minniti-Shippey
Winner, 2008 Fool for Poetry Competition

Richesses: Francophone Songwriter Poets
Edited and translated by Aidan Hayes

Munster Literature Centre

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PADDY BUSHE

Paddy Bushe was born in Dublin and now lives in Waterville, Co. Kerry. He writes in both Irish and English, and has published eight collections of poetry, the most recent of which is To Ring in Silence: New and Selected Poems (Dedalus 2008). He is a member of Aosdána.

Skellig Birds

Puffin
Hilarious, yes,
But that sad clown spends winters
Completely at sea.

Fulmar
Looks like the others
But it spits independence
And will not be gulled.

Shearwater
Those aerobatics,
Skimming the froth off the waves,
Live up to its name.

Peregrine
When its tapered wings
Stir to plunge from the high ledge
Fledgling hearts plummet

Rock Pipits
They’re grey against stone
But they cheep and wag their tails,
Mad for attention.

Choughs
Shrieking a cancan
They display their scarlet legs
To the whole wide world.

Pigeons
Sometimes they arrive,
Lost souls looking for a new
Sense of direction.

Common Gull
For that epithet
The red spot on its beak glows
With indignation.

Kittiwakes
At Blind Man’s Cove
They scream their names loud enough
To waken the dead.

Guillemot
Ridiculous name,
But it’s what the guide-book says,
There, in black and white.

Cormorants
Totally immersed,
They yearn for a christening
Other than sea-hag.

Storm Petrels
Holed up in stone walls
Warmly safe from the world’s storms,
You hear them gurgle.

Gannets
Wheeling in sunlight,
On those glorious white wings –
What is left to say?

©2009 Paddy Bushe

Author Links

'Yangshuo River Walk', poem by Bushe at Magma

Bushe Vicipéid (Wikipedia) biography as Gaeilga

Bushe at Dedalus Press

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