New VoicesPoetryLiterature

New Voices [01]: Coill Liath / Greywood

By Stiofan O hIfearnain

Coill Liath

ritheann gabhar as an bhfraoch dóite
i dtreo droichid, thar sruthán salach

is ionadh go rabhamar
in ann teacht thar na sléibhte

thréigeamar an saibhreas
is ritheamar i dtreo an donais

ár ndóchas millte:
an gheis sáraithe againn.

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Greywood

Out of the burned-off heather
runs a goat in dirty weather

over a stream and towards a bridge.
How we crossed that mountain ridge

I still don’t know, safe no more,
bogged down rightly in the mire,

and despairing of the whole to-do:
we’d broken the taboo.

Trans. by David Wheatley

New Voices is a new poetry segment for 2016, featuring emerging writers under the age of 30. We are open for submissions from young poets who have yet to publish a full collection of poetry. Please send up to 5 poems to [email protected], in a .doc file, audio file or video format. All poems should be original and unpublished.

Stiofan O hIfearnain 1 posts 0 comments

A native of Co Tipperary, Stiofán Ó hIfearnáin’s work has previously been published in Comhar, The Stinging Fly and Southword among others, and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2014. Currently in the final year of a BA (Int) in History and German at UCD, he was once asked when discussing a manuscript in a pub with a friend as to whether they were signing a pre-nup.

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