Paula Meehan

• Buying Winkles

  "My mother would spare me sixpence...

  'don't be talking to strange

  men on the way.'"
• Buying Winkles

  "Gardiner Street"
• Buying Winkles

  "Even in rain I was happy - the winkles

  would be wet and glisten blue like little

  night skies themselves"
• Buying Winkles

  "Women at sill or those

  lingering in doorways and weae a glad path through ment heading out for the night."
• Buying Winkles

  "She'd be sitting outside the ROsebowl Bar

  on an orange-crate"
• Buying Winkles

  ""I'd see the light in golden mirrors.

  I envied each soul in the hot interior."
• Buying Winkles

  "I'd bear the newspaper twists

  bulging fat with winkles

  proudly home, like torches."
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "It can be bitter here at times like this...

  Its seeds of ice can cut you to the quick."
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks


  "Trees

  cavort in agony"
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "Men hunt each other and invoke

  the various names of God as blessing

  on their death tactics"
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "I hear fish drowning.

  I taste the stagnant water mingled

  with turf smoke from outlying farms."
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "They call me Mary - Blessed, Holy, Virgin.

  They fit me to a myth of a man crucified"
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "Their prayers

  fly up like sparks from a bonfire

  that blaze a moment, then wink out."
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "All Souls' Night" (2nd November)
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "She pushed her secret out into the night,

  far from the town tucked up in little scandals"
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "I did not move,

  I didn't life a finger to help her,

  I didn't intercede with heaven"
• The Statue of the Virgin at Granard Speaks

  "O sun,

  centre of our foolish dance,

  burning heart of stone,

  molten mother of us all,

  hear me and have pity."
• The Exact Moment I Became a Poet

  "'Attend to your books, girls,

  or mark my words, you'll end

  in the sewing factory."
• The Exact Moment I Became a Poet


  "Those words 'end up' robbed

  the labour of its dignity."
• The Exact Moment I Became a Poet

  "I saw them: mothersm aunts and neighbours

  trussed like chickens

  on a conveyor belt."
• The Exact Moment I Became a Poet

  "Words could pluck you,

  leave you naked,

  your lovely shiny feathers all gone."
• Hearth Lesson

  "I am crouched by the fire

  in the flat in Seán McDermott Street

  while Zeus and Hera battle it out."
• Hearth Lesson

  "For his every thunderbolt

  she had a killing glance."
• Hearth Lesson

  "He'll raise her airs and graces

  or the mental state if her siblings."
• Hearth Lesson

  "I'm net, umpire, and court; most balls

  are lobbed over my head."
• Hearth Lesson

  "The flames were blue and pink and green,

  a marvelous sight, an alchemical scene."
• Hearth Lesson

  "The flames sheered from cinfer to chimney breast

  like trapped exotic birds."
• Hearth Lesson

  "She'd

  had the last, the astonishing, word."
• Prayer for the Children of Longing

  "Great tree...

  Still rich with the sap of the forest."
• Prayer for the Children of Longing

  "The comfort of snow"

  "Grant us the forest's silence."
• Prayer for the Children of Longing

  "The scream, the siren, the knock on the door

  The needle in its track

  The knife in the back"
• Prayer for the Children of Longing

  "The echo of their voices through the city streets

  The streets that defeated them

  That brought them to their knees"
• Prayer for the Children of Longing

  "Let their names be the holiest prayers

  Under the starlight, under the moonlight

  In the light of this tree

  Here at the heart of winter

  Here at the heart of the city"
• Them Ducks Died for Ireland

  "Time slides slowly down the sash window

  puddling in light on oaken boards."
• Them Ducks Died for Ireland

  "The Green

  is a great lung, exhaling like a breath on the pane"
• Them Ducks Died for Ireland

  "Once made a mirror to smoke and fire

  a Republic's destiny in a Countess' stride"
• Them Ducks Died for Ireland

  "We'll salute the stretcher-bearer,

  ....

  who live at the edge, and die there"
• Them Ducks Died for Ireland

  "Fragile as a breathmark on the windowpane or the gesture

  of commemorating heroes in bronze and stone."
• Theme of Family
• Theme of Poverty