Translated from the Irish by Sorcha de Br煤n.
Smithereens (2022)
This day, forever framed by briny gorse
A queerness hangs in the shoreline air
Looking back to Ballythaidhg and a summer day there
A speck of dust lived on the lens
A hard stare fixed on his face
Holidays once taken in this summer place
The story drip-told by the shore comes unexpected
Stones, white and grey, are carefully collected
Chewing on sand, there is much sweetness ingested
The other children, searching and playing
While my son, mouth dribbling,
Is silent, smart, alone, softly moaning.
A mother鈥檚 sorrow – her trial
Is the power of her own denial,
Refusing abnormality in the genes of the child
And as the sun is setting
The photograph of the day captures my thoughts
Orbiting the spheres of my mind as this life waxes and wanes
The thorned surround of my life, a chassis:
Reality bites.
Scratching, screaming out of this brackish carcass.
The original title of the poem in Irish is 鈥淪midir铆n铆.鈥 Translated with permission of the author.
Julie Field (aka Julie Goo) is a renowned bilingual writer in Irish and English and a singer from Cork, Ireland. In great demand with Irish language and bilingual audiences, she has performed her rap and spoken word poetry extensively, both nationally and internationally. Field is the Winner of the Heart of Gort聽Slam in 2019, and her poetry collection聽D谩na (Coisc茅im) was published in 2021 to acclaim. She is a frequent collaborator with DJ Mike Millis, and their work can be heard here
Sorcha de Br煤nis lecturer in Irish in the School of Irish, English and Communication in the University of Limerick, Ireland.聽聽A recipient of the Foras na Gaeilge Award for fiction, the M谩irt铆n 脫 Cadhain Short Story Award and Oireachtas na Gaeilge literary awards, she has translated the work of numerous German poets to Irish for the聽顿谩苍苍别谤蝉迟补驳聽Irish-German poetry project.
Copyright @Julie Goo, 2022; translation copyright @Sorcha de Br煤n, 2023.
Published on November 21, 2023.
