The Great Hunger

 

 

 

She is the land and doesn’t want to see them go,
young men, afraid, of unknown shores.

But the potato crop has failed

and Ireland bleeds youth in ghost ships.

Phantom and matriarch of all,
she sits still as a statue

 

of our Virgin Mary  

outside a decrepit dusty church,

a bowl of blue sky tints her white dress

 

in hues of intense misery.
Mothers, frail as sheaves of wheat,

boil water on grit stoves,

 

warm their hands over the copper

kettle’s steam.  Far off, fathers,

skin ruddied as our barren mud,

dig graves in the crisp ground

and boy starvelings eat the worms

they unearth. From first light to nightfall,

our Priests lead Requiem Masses
as whole generations are mothered  

into our land’s gathering dust.

 

Reviews

[koRnkitty]

Random idea - you could rearrange the stanzas into lines of four and one line on its own at the end. Not that there is anything at all wrong with the poem as is. Sometimes a stanza break takes something away from the fluidity of an image being continued over the gulf. Really i'm searching for things to suggest. It's a very strong piece.

[W.k.kortas]

It's the Pogues and Black 47 raised to a higher level. Highly visual and evocative, almost cinematic. A truly fine piece of work.

[Vanessa Whiteley]

I must have read this poem a hundred times and I will never get tired of reading it. Stunningly beautiful poem. It is almost painful to read you paint such a powerful picture.

boy starvelings
eat the worms he unearths.

As Blackbirdsong writes you bring history alive so one can begin to feel what it must have been like.

From first light to nightfall,
our Priests lead Requiem Masses
as whole generations
are mothered
into our land's gathering dust.

And one can just imagine those young men afraid of unknown shores. Brings a lump to my throat even after these many readings. You are a true poet.

[Pema Dorje]

... a historic piece with alacrity and meaning ... well writ, Sel!

[PianoandPage]

oh man. this is intensely sad.

"a bowl of blue sky
tints her white dress
in hues of intense misery" - what a great way to combine nature and human emotion.

this whole poem does a great job of interweaving the land and humanity together. it really makes you feel for the country and the sons and daughters.

describing women as "sheaves of wheat" - again a perfect harrowing image.

you honor history beautifully and with haunting words.

[__Flaw__]

Its kind of a half stitched wound. You let it this way and when ever the other half tries to regenerate, u just use ur nail, scrub it, and tear it open again...Your poems remind me of those never healing wounds...they might be history, they might be down and dusted through the winds of time have made sand dunes on everything tagged PAST, but then again, as u leave, u take some part of the past, or leave a part of it, for others to ponder upon.... :))))))

[Blackbirdsong]

I've read dry histories about the great potato famine, but this is the only piece that made me feel what that must have been like. Many here where I live in NY are descended from those who came here during those day on those ghostships of long ago. I also live near the only place in the US where the green light is on top of the red. The Irish residents insists and after many, many smashed red lights, the green finally went on the top.

Your poem speaks of the strength of a people who weren't defeated even as they lost so many of those they loved. I wish I could say its unimaginable, but the news of Darfur and other places have made it even more real.

[Emily B]

Your words strike historical chords. So many times of exodus from the land you describe. In the 18th century, indentured servants sat in the belly of ships on their way to a new world and certain slavery.

On another level, your words are a requiem for the land itself. The dust covered fields that lay fallow without crops. The images are so bleak, so like a nightmare that we wonder that anyone could live under such circumstances at all. And maybe, the inhabitants themselves are dust, beyond living, beyond feeling, beyond faith, beyond everything.

[Lex]

That was so powerful and sad. I wish I could write like that. An enlightened re-telling of one the darkest periods.

[[untitled]]

There is a crisp sentiment to this piece...such that you feel when a folk legend is told. This works wonderfully well. Great imagery, almost fascinating. Nice approach. Best wishes, Bethlynne.