THE YELLOW RIVER - Seán McSweeney & Gerard Smyth
The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.
The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.
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THE KILLJOY MONTH
…..and I knew
that part of my life was over.
Stanley Kunitz
When the coming of the killjoy month
meant back to school, I stood where four roads
converged and blackberry bushes
were in their days of renewal.
I was waiting for the country bus to pick me up
and when I said farewell, she looked bereft –
the unmarried aunt who was my summer mother.
I didn’t want her fuss, her hugs
and not her kisses that drew a crimson blush.
I was returning to a city school
and schoolyard blues:
the spit in the eye, the thump on the back,
the look that said You’re dead.
Where you had to be quick, no time for rhetoric
when the bully’s bare fist was scoring hits
on the weakest member of the gang.
Where sticks and stones could break our bones.
Fingernails scratch until our faces bled.
But what hurt most were the names
that were falsehoods: Snake-in-the-grass,
Piss-in-the-bed. Telltale. Teacher’s Pet.
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