On the 25th of April, which is Ireland’s Poetry Day, a variety of readings and other affairs are slated to occur throughout the nation (visit Poetryday.ie to find the list of these events and activities happening in your local area). The theme chosen by Poetry Ireland, the country’s leading authority on poetry, for this decade’s mark is Good Sports, to celebrate the good sportsmanship within all of us.
In response to a nation-wide search, 12 poems have been picked to commemorate the day, and these will be put on display throughout April in the Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail) network and library branches throughout the country. This includes poems by poets such as Katie Donovan, Rosemary Jenkinson, Máirtín Coilféir, Patrick Moran, and Enda Wyley.
‘Winter Heroes’ by Katie Donovan is a poem about a frosty Sunday and an eager team of six. The poem delves into a tale of boy who displays his skill on the soccer field, despite dealing with minor difficulties and obstacles. Another featured poem is ‘Pommel Horse’ by Rosemary Jenkinson which tells the story of a gymnast performing on a pommel horse, creating a cloud of chalk as he grips the leathery surface and skillfully whirls his hands around.
“He tightens his grip on the handles, his toes
Poised like a ballet dancer in the sky,
Executing spins, swirling, spiralling and blazing.
The tension hangs in the minimal
Margins between triumph and failure – one slight
Misstep with his grip and it’s near to slipping through his fingers;
A shudder, but he curves and propels,
Encircling five times akin to the five Olympic loops,
With one final rhythmic thrust,
Imitates the curvature of a gleaming medal,
And executes a handstand into an existence of unwavering conviction.
Bound by reverence and respect,
This bright, bloated ball,
Presses against my belly –
It’s due to this I will not dare to lay a hand
On stick or boat,
I will not entertain the face
Of a swimming beam.
Yet here, I am detained,
A mat is the end of my paddling;
Behind the dwelling place.
You withstood, digging through canaliculus.
The Glint by Patrick Moran
Even when you’d whittled away
To an emaciated silhouette,
Struggling for mere survival –
Your attempts faltering at the threshold,
Your future snookers
Aren’t cunningly assessed anymore –
The grandeur of your heyday
Haunted the chambers of recollection:
Fleeting, a clandestine passenger…
There, amid the reverence
Of the amphitheatre. Sightline unbowed,
Fuelled by spirits, you strut
Toward the felt, zealous
To pocket the balls.
Rejecting restraint,
You command spins and merges,
A jolting shot to keep a faltering
Sequence alive: the challenging brown;
A delicate strike on the blue;
That clumsy pink, inching across
The table’s length. Leaving
The finally conquered black;
Your jittery sheen; the cue ball
Motionless on the pristine green.”
(From Bearings, Salmon Poetry, 2015)
(Painting by Gerry Davis, The National Gallery of Ireland)
And who would refuse the urge to be
Henry Shefflin, uprooted from his roots,
Positioned upright, his head held high.
“Feet steadfastly placed on the Ballyhale turf,
a hurley hoisted on his shoulder, the other
hand nonchalantly in his trouser pocket?
No longer clad in soiled shorts and jersey now–
he rules these terrains, a tailored sovereign
of everything circling him, confronting the steely future
his history a sliotar propelled far down the pitch.
Heart of all entities, he cherishes looking up
the refined staircase to Canova’s ‘Amorino,’
and is more mature than this marble royalty, though
equally resolute, both with hands uplifted-
one to a bow, the other grasping the hurley’s end.”