TWENTY-NINE OF Ní Ghríofa’s Irish poems, translated by herself. The poems have been selected from three different collections of her Irish poetry, and I wish someone had thought to add a note on which poems came from which collections, but oh, well.
Almost all of the poetry translated from Irish I have read was written centuries ago, so it is a bit of a kick just to see Irish language poems that mention selfies (féin-phic) or dishwashers (miasniteoir). But even the poems furnished with contemporary details tend to have lines with a whiff of the traditional about them, like “My shoulders were those of a stranger” (“Dos Conejos”) or this from “Cusp of Autumn”:
The beech tree watching from above
forgets herself and drops a handful
of leaves—golden, green—
sending them scattering into the stream.
Or “When I open / my mouth, my tongue flies away” from the opening poem, “First Date on Azul Street”.
How did the rest of that first date go, I wonder? That is actually the reason I wish I knew which poem came from which collection. Some hearken back to flaming youth (“rave,” “Tattoo Removal”), others speak of pregnancy and motherhood. I imagine Ní Ghríofa had these phases in the usual sequence, but who knows?
I recently picked up her prose book, A Ghost in the Throat, but I’m glad I read this first. Curious about her English language poetry, too—how different is it from her Irish-into-English poetry?
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