Published by Salmon Poetry in Ireland, this is Anne Le Marquand Hartigan's fourth published book of poetry. It's a substantial collection (149 pages) and contains the full text of Anne's poem La Corbiere, which was adapted for the stage at the Dublin Theatre Festival.
"Immortal Sins covers a wide variety of themes: birth, death, including the pleasures and trials of love. It includes the long poem La Corbiere; which I performed as a solo theatre piece in the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Dublin. It was also performed in the Dublin Theatre Festival with a cast of six." Anne Le M Hartigan
"The latest collection of poems by Anne Hartigan brings us daringly through the minefield avoided by less courageous writers who see Cliche written wherever Love appears. These poems are in the main about love, the fury, the pain, the passion, and the loss that goes with it. Anne Hartigan's voice is distinctive. She speaks as a lover who has borne children and has seen their children born. In this collection she celebrates sensuousness, lusty, treacherous, messy and inescapably human. Like the best poets, she brings us to new awareness with many unexpected images, "birds slicing the air". These are skilful and honest poems. They have their own particular music and move like the feet of a dancer, weaving in and out her themes of love failed, denied, lost, achieved. Few contemporary poets handle the themes of love and loss with such vigour and truthfulness." Maeve Kelly
In That Garden
In that garden once she took down the Apple
Casually because she wanted to know, and then
There was all that fuss, Adam going
Bananas saying that she'd tipped the apple cart
And God;
Oh God was a pain getting all huffed up about
His tree and the serpent splitting its sides
READ MOREUnder the bushes laughing.
To save face after all night discussions behind
Closed gates they decided on a lockout. Adam
Raging that he was implicated because of the odd
Bite he took in case she knew more than he did;
She did of course, and now she knew it made no
Difference which side of the gates of paradise
They were; until God took a good look at himself
And saw his own womb, his own breast, and not only
His staff of righteousness.
The Big Grieving
The honesty of touch skin asks for,
peeling off the outer, unnessary layers,
wool, cotton, nylon, polyester
or smelly socks.
(skin, white as an almond
delicate, pure water)
She needs to say, I love you,
because, simply, on this floor
on this rough blanket, under
this floating duvet, she does.
He says, Sssh, when she has tears,
touches her eyes, but its good to weep;
bodies become so simple by removing
wool, cotton, nylon, polyester,
then the big grieving of the world
slips from them, down through
the floorboards, washed through
the drains of the earth
So I leave nothing with you, my beloved
No Hair of my head
No book on the shelf
No bra on the floor
No stockings.
No pen on the table
Not a button from my blouse,
No toothbrush
No flannel
No towel
damp in a heap, No
Night dress, not
A lipstick
An eyeliner
No face cream No
the was no breath of me,
Not a tissue
Not a mark
Not a comb
Not an earring
No car keys
No map
No - not a footprint,a
wheelprint? Can you see it?
There in the shadows, in
The gravel
I dropped nothing
I left nothing
Not a wave in the air
But beloved
press close in the sheets
where my body lay there
where my skin sank there
where my flesh warmed there,
that dip there,
that ruckle there,
breath, deepdeep, did I
leave scent of me ?
To write what is not Word that is quiet that is still that moves not that fears not that troubles not stiller than still water behold this is silence the stillness of pine needles the stillnes of bark the stillnes of stone that is without sound that is without voice that is without need behold this is silence and full. Stillness of bone stillness of darkness warm without terror empty of thought full of this space airy, light, whisper, no footfall on leaves no footfall on gravel no knock on the doorCOLLAPSE
