Paula Meehan: Irish Professor of Poetry

DEATH OF A FIELD

 

The field itself is lost the morning it becomes a site
When the Notice goes up: Fingal County Council – 44 houses

The memory of the field is lost with the loss of its herbs

Though the woodpigeons in the willow
And the finches in what’s left of the hawthorn hedge
And the wagtail in the elder
Sing on their hungry summer song

The magpies sound like flying castanets

And the memory of the field disappears with its flora:
Who can know the yearning of yarrow
Or the plight of the scarlet pimpernel
Whose true colour is orange?

And the end of the field is the end of the hidey holes
Where first smokes, first tokes, first gropes
Were had to the scentless mayweed

The end of the field as we know it is the start of the estate
The site to be planted with houses each two or three bedroom
Nest of sorrow and chemical, cargo of joy

The end of dandelion is the start of Flash
The end of dock is the start of Pledge
The end of teazel is the start of Ariel
The end of primrose is the start of Brillo
The end of thistle is the start of Bounce
The end of sloe is the start of Oxyaction
The end of herb robert is the start of Brasso
The end of eyebright is the start of Fairy

Who amongst us is able to number the end of grasses
To number the losses of each seeding head?

                                         I’ll walk out once
Barefoot under the moon to know the field
Through the soles of my feet to hear
The myriad leaf lives green and singing
The million million cycles of being in wing

That – before the field become solely map memory
In some archive of some architect’s screen
I might possess it or it possess me
Through its night dew, its moon white caul
Its slick and shine and its prolifigacy
In every wingbeat in every beat of time

© 2005, Paula Meehan

 

 

Today Dublin’s “informal poet laureate” Paula Meehan has been named Ireland Professor of Poetry.

The poet and playwright is the second woman to be awarded the prestigious post, set up in 1998 after the late Seamus Heaney won the Nobel prize for literature. Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill held the post from 2001-2004

Meehan, who has worked with prisoners and people from disadvantaged backgrounds, is regarded as giving a voice to people and places that are often marginalised and forgotten.

Paula Meehan reading "Death of a Field"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYnyU7CkXjU

I attended a poetry reading given by Paula Meehan a few years ago I knew very little about her work but this poem won me over. It has particular meaning looking back on the building boom in Ireland followed by the bust..ghost estates etc...beautiful sites totally destroyed by greedy developers.