Anne Le Marquand Hartigan's first collection of poetry. In times past it was said there were marks by which you might know a poet, one of which was a extra long tongue. However, if a woman was a poet these traits were double!
"Anne Hartigan is capable of epigrammatic compression as well as a neo-epic expansiveness. She is also experimental; her experiments, however, suggest a long acquaintance with, and considerable understanding of more traditional forms of writing. This book, therefore, is valuable and interesting not only for itself, for the many singing and witty poems it contains. for its intelligence and humour, but also because the reader instantly recognizes the voice of one who is going to continue to explore new ways of grappling with language, new styles, new techniques. There is nothing staid or complacent or lethargic here; we are in the presence of a writer bent on exploration and discovery."
Brendan Kennelly
Publisher: Beaver Row Press
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Sour AppleO little sour apple of reason
You've laid out the truth clear and sane,
Now I see the dark and the brightness,
I'd rather be blinded again.For a fool loves without any caution,
For a fool plays any childs game,
Ignorance has its own freedom,
O I wish to be foolish again.O little sour apple of knowledge,
Tides
You lie in my palm as a pain.
I have bitten and tasted your wisdom,
I'd rather be simple again.The water washed your name
away from the sand; nothing holds:
Look at this changing, each day
wears a fresh smell, carryingOld odours with it. We continue
despite the rise and fall of the sea.
Its lace wiping the slate an imaginary
clean. Footprint it, thereAgain we have carved in
READ MORE
the old weakness, the old pain
On the new sheen.The sands
pull, pull underfoot back to the seaObeying their own deep order.
The Milkman's Wife
While you, rise, gull sharp in my mind;
The shell lies perfectly empty.
The waves pound and pound.Old hag death
Came trundling down.Sing to me a lightsome song,
We love her not
Though she does no wrong,Sing to me a love song.
She took the milkman's
Wife away,0 sing to us a keening,
Tears in the chink
Of the bottles that day.0 sing to me a sad song.
Why old bitch
Did you take her hand,0 tell us what's your meaning,
She'd done no harm
And she hadn't lived long,0 sing a song with feeling.
There is no reason,
There is no rhymeAnd I'm bloody well coming
In my own good time,That's what I do be singing.
That's what the old bag's singing,
COLLAPSE
That's what the old hag's bringing.