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.
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
THE SALTED ROADS
Land pays the price for becoming human.
Fanny Howe
These roads are for the monster trucks,
once they were smaller
in days when the cattle drive
was what roads were for.
These roads were never on the map
until someone decided nothing was sacred,
not even the ancient path of kings,
the weather watcher’s hill above the plain,
the raggedy hedgerows, the rainbow ditches,
the village of old neighbours
who gave and received, the field
where the ploughman could see all that was his
and where the tree of crows still stands
in the tall grass, on wintry land.
These roads with their roadside shrines
and mystery crosses
are where car-wheels danced on black ice
and someone died in a stew of glass
and engine oil – a crash that happened
because speed merchants take a chance
crossing bridges in the dark,
hurrying on the sunny roads of May and June,
the salted roads of winter.
46
Change language