Poem of the Week: Vernal Equinox
To celebrate the Vernal Equinox, the beginning of Spring, we’re taking a short break from our Revolution NOW series to bring you something a little different.
Monday was World Poetry Day, and poet and creative writing teacher, Nessa O’Mahony invited fellow poets on Facebook to join her in creating a collaborative poem to mark the event. Here’s Nessa to explain how it works:
‘It’s a variation of the Exquisite Corpse game, which is where a poem or story is written by a collective, with each member of the group contributing a line or sentence. Some times they do it without seeing what has gone before, other times it is done, as we did it, with the next person responding to what has preceded them. It just occurred to me yesterday, with all the talk about International Poetry Day, that it could be fun to try it out as a Facebook status update and responses.’
Vernal Equinox
World Poetry Day 21st March 2016
The tree-top shivers finely between day and night:
unfurls its nub, shy, fur-backed like a mole.
Light leaks from the east, a quiver in dense air;
birdsong scores the lightlines
and the voices of small children map imaginary games.
Bending the streaming and glistening minutes
that pass one by one into the mystery of time
while overhead the moon’s fetch pins up blue skies
and Nature shrugs her frozen cloak
and the blue fish in the green water flicks its tail.
How will the frosts and dawns and dusks of our days
turn back the minutes as the hours progress?
Written by:
Nessa O’Mahony
Angela Carr
Brian Kirk
Karen McDonnell
Helena Nolan
Kimberley Lynne
John Saunders
Breda Wall Ryan
Nollaig Brennan
Margaret O’Brien
Judith Thurley
If you’d like the chance to work on some poems with Nessa she’s hosting a free creative writing workshop in Celbridge with the Open University in April, and will be teaching a three-day beginners creative writing workshop at Listowel Writers’ Week in June.
You can also see Nessa interview author, Lia Mills on The Attic Sessions.
We are currently accepting submissions to our regular features: MONOGRAPH (a group of poems by a single author) and New Voices (poets aged 18-30 who have yet to publish a full collection).
Please read the full requirements on our Submissions page, before sending your work.
Featured Image: CC01
