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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KNIGHTSTOWN, CODA
In memory of Mary (Finnegan) Traynor
The ash from the last fires was cold in the hearth.
It was as if the old house was making a gradual departure.
When I opened the door I knew it was a place
where an epic story had ended.
Three generations, four if you count
the children of emigrants who sailed to America.
There was dust on the windows and dust in the cups
and on the framed photographs of emigrant sons.
A house of hush, a crack in the glass
letting in draughts that blew the heart away.
A beam in the rafters was ready to collapse,
the fabrics had holes in them where moths
had been busy flitting from blankets
to blue apron, curtain to curtain.
The blackened pan still held a whiff of bacon
and the empty teapot on the table
was left there like her first thought after waking.
The ash from the last fires was cold in the hearth,
the odour of turf smoke faint but refusing to die.
September Field
Ink and watercolour on paper
14.5 x 20.5cm
2016
62
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