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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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JO SLADE

Jo Slade, poet & painter, lives and works in Limerick. She is the author of four books of  poetry, including a French/English collection, Certain Octobers, which was published in France. Her fourth collection, City of Bridges, was published by Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher, Ireland in 2005. In 2003 she was nominated for the Prix Evelyne Encelot Ecriture Prize, Paris. She has been Writer-in-Residence for Limerick County Council and in 2007 she was Writer-in-Residence at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris. 

November Day

For Joan MacKernan

1.

3am

Then, there is prayer.

The act of praying, of being inside the tree

and kneeling down inside the tree.

Of being still as a still pond

and being inside the pond.

Lying down with water in prayer.

Then, there’s the habit of rhythm

body seconds, 0.9 of a second

pumping the prayer

and there’s a bowing down inside the body

of prayer, being inside the life

is prayer. Being there.

1.40pm

Birds lift from the wet earth

unfurl into cloud, soar across the sky

and I wonder if I wait here will wind lift me,

carry me as light above the land ?

2.

5.15pm

Evening light creeps in.

Shadows spread across the paving.

A wren pulls cotton

from a rag hanging by the studio door.

And that long shadow is not my son

but a tree's arm spreading,

slipping into his body with a familiar sway.

For a second, I see him out there

against the weathered timber.

11.30pm

Diary Entry: To my mother.

Winter. Water stills.

Everything falls inward.

The well is full of stars

and the night sky

is a constellation of swallows.

©2009 Jo Slade

Author Links

Poems, bio and book at Salmon Poetry

Slade at Irish Writers Online

Video of Slade reading at the White House in Limerick

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