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The Island of Poetry

The Island of Poetry Catherine Phil MacCarthy After my first poetry collection, This Hour of the Tide, was published in 1994, I was asked one of those questions that aspiring authors are often asked: Who has been the greatest influence on my work? When I thought about the question, I answered that it was the experience of life itself--maybe one could call it fate-- that proved the greatest influence. I think of the place I grew up as an island. It was a farm in County Limerick, the house almost a mile from the road so we--two families, my own and that of my maternal uncle, living side by side--were islanded by fields. The townland was known as Badgersfort, Lios Brioc in Irish, and the place I went to school was Crecora that translated as Craobh Cumhra, the fragrant branch (though we were in the parish of Fedamore and lived on the boundary between the two). These possible meanings for our own place were in our heads from early on. There were four children in each house, a grandfather in ours, a grandmother next door, a community of children and adults, and it was the center of the world. As Gaston Bachelard http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png New Hibernia Review Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas

The Island of Poetry

New Hibernia Review , Volume 20 (3) – Oct 14, 2016

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Publisher
Center for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 The University of St. Thomas.
ISSN
1534-5815
Publisher site
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Abstract

Catherine Phil MacCarthy After my first poetry collection, This Hour of the Tide, was published in 1994, I was asked one of those questions that aspiring authors are often asked: Who has been the greatest influence on my work? When I thought about the question, I answered that it was the experience of life itself--maybe one could call it fate-- that proved the greatest influence. I think of the place I grew up as an island. It was a farm in County Limerick, the house almost a mile from the road so we--two families, my own and that of my maternal uncle, living side by side--were islanded by fields. The townland was known as Badgersfort, Lios Brioc in Irish, and the place I went to school was Crecora that translated as Craobh Cumhra, the fragrant branch (though we were in the parish of Fedamore and lived on the boundary between the two). These possible meanings for our own place were in our heads from early on. There were four children in each house, a grandfather in ours, a grandmother next door, a community of children and adults, and it was the center of the world. As Gaston Bachelard

Journal

New Hibernia ReviewCenter for Irish Studies at the University of St. Thomas

Published: Oct 14, 2016

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