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20 February 2015
Poetry - Study Ireland

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Â鶹ԼÅÄ NI Schools
- ages 11-16

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KS 3 / 4 Â鶹ԼÅÄ TV

A Sense Of Place

Eilish Martin says:

'...in the poem I am revisiting many of the places that I would have been familiar with in my childhood.'

'...for me poetry is a journey and through that journey I discover a great deal about myself. And it is in the process of writing that I am able to find out various things that I believe in or don't believe in. So for me writing is very much a journey in thought.'

'...it is a compulsion - it's something that you really don't have any control over. If you want to write you have to write...For me a lot of poetry is a journey and through that journey I discover a great deal about myself. And it is in the process of writing that I am able to find out various things that I believe in or don't believe in. So for me writing is very much a journey in thought.'

Paradise Fatigue

Above the falling blade of the Hatchet Field a cloud
ÌýÌýÌýÌýshrouds, a star
hums, a moon pendulums, a merlin scythes the air
with angled wings, a wind sings in the cat's cradle
of a transmission aerial.

Below Black Mountain a kneeling cherub with
ÌýÌýÌýÌýa fractured wing
swings from the jib of a crank-and-ratchet crane
in a monumental sculptor's yard strewn
with half-engraved memorials.

Under the sign of two beaten angels hanging by a
ÌýÌýÌýÌýbrazen wing
at the place where six roads cross
a stolen Zephyr brakes spilling
strings of Angel Dust.

Elsewhere the wings of a broadsheet fold round the
ÌýÌýÌýÌýglobe of a hazard
lamp alternating in circuits of blips and quarks
a quirk of light in the spaces
between the words.

Eilish Martin

Eilish Martin was born in Belfast in 1945 where she now lives and works. After raising a family she returned to writing in 1992. Her first collection, Slitting the Tongues of Jackdaws was published in 1999. She has also published poems in the Sunday Tribune's 'New Irish Writing', Woman's Work and Word of Mouth. The Martin poem in this selection is Paradise Fatigue.

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