Full Description
Louis de Paor is one of Ireland's leading Irish-language poets, and was a key figure in the Irish language poetry renaissance of the 1980s and 90s. His dual-language selection The Brindled Cat and the Nightingale's Tongue was published in 2014, following his selected poems, Rogha Dánta (2012), voted one of the top ten collections in Irish since the turn of the millennium.
This new dual-language selection is mainly drawn from two other collections, Cúpla Siamach an Ama/The Siamese Twins of Time and Grá fiar/Crooked Love, with translations made by Louis de Paor with Kevin Anderson and Biddy Jenkinson. It shows a paring back of language and a greater flexibility of form in his poetry, as well as a preoccupation with the passage of time and its implications for both familial and sexual love.
His narrative skill and inventiveness come together in the sequence 'Lá dá raibh/One day', which follows a day in the life of an imaginary village in the west of Ireland where the living and the dead, the real and the unreal, collide. This was adapted for a dual-language radio feature with music by Dana Lyn broadcast on RTÉ Lyric FM and Raidió na Gaeltachta in 2021.
Contents
Clár |Contents
I
Don gcéad ghlúin a mhairfidh tréis 8 | For the first generation to survive
bhás na Gaeilge the death of Irish
Caora finiúna 12 | Grapes
Fuarán 16 | Fountain
Iascaire is ea m'athair le ceart 20 | My father is a fisherman by right
Cloigíní 24 | Bells
Luascáin 28 | Swings
II
Multi-tasking 34 | Multi-tasking
Hataí 38 | Hats off
Bóithre 42 | Chaos theory
Matamaitic 46 | Mathematics
Lánúintí 48 | Couples
Bratacha 52 | Flags
Iníon Deichtine 54 | Deichtine's daughter
III
Lá dá raibh... 56 | One day...
IV
Luck 102 | Luck
Ar Oileán Bruny 108 | On Bruny Island
Garbhach, Inis Cara 112 | Garbhach, Inis Cara
Aesthetics 118 | Aesthetics
Mise agus an leabhar i gCafé na Beatha 126 | The Book and I in Café de la Vie
V
Macalla 134 | Echoes
Pluaiseanna 136 | Caverns
Ar cuairt 142 | Visiting
Rósanna 146 | Roses
Téada 150 | Strings
Paidir Ameiriceánach 154 | American prayer
Nótaí 157 | Notes
