GO TO MLC HOMEPAGE

ONLINE BOOKSTORE FEATURED TITLES

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

Create your badge

MARY O'MALLEY

Mary O'Malley has published seven collections of poetry, the latest being A Perfect V from Carcanet, UK. Born in Connemara, she now lives in Moycullen Gaeltacht. O'Malley was Writer-in-Residence at NUI Galway until August 2009, teaching on their MA in writing. She is currently working on a memoir and has just finished a new collection of poems entitled Valparaiso. She is a recipient of the Hennessey Award and was winner of 2009 Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry in the US.

RECESSION EVE

Ban teabags.  Grow your own

oranges and chocolate. Divine

the limestone for the best wine.

Take up knitting and learn to stitch. Good luck.

It’s deadly dull, though you could knit

yourself a new man, or assemble one quick

enough from Chinese barbeque instructions

with missing bits, a leg sticking out like an elbow

and wonky logic, just like the old model.

He would fix the roof,  unblock drains

and in an ideal world, protect you from storms

while you knit a garden, with a tree in blossom

and forgetting the heartache, the dropped stitches

you’d eat the apple out of his hand again

and spin gold from the serpent’s promises.

©2009 Mary O'Malley

Author Links

Extended bio and poems at Poetry International Web

O'Malley reviews, bio and books at Carcanet

Irish Writers Online bio

BACK TO TOP