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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LITTLE VILLAGE
It was where first and last things happened,
the summer hayride, the classroom chant,
then fond farewells before lads and lassies
scattered away to seek their chance.
Village news was all about who was at the dance,
whose dress was extravagant,
the men who couldn’t stand.
On Sundays they passed the basket
in a church that had a choir in harmony
for the Sabbath but not the six days after that.
Crosswinds blew through the chapel gates
and over hardened graves with headstone dates
that revealed what only a fool would fail to see:
that measures of time are seldom the same
for the bridegroom and the bride, the firstborn
and the one who would always be the last child.
August Field
Watercolour on paper
17.5 x 25.5cm
2016
50
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