Witness

By Anne Donnellan

Donnellan does for the people (past and present) of the townlands of her native County Clare a later-day version of what Kavanagh did for his Monaghan. Her poems are rich with guttural wit. Many of Donnellan’s poems tell us stories of the sort of people we might call ‘characters’. — Kevin Higgins, author

• Language: English
• Publisher: Limerick Writers Centre
• Release date: Dec 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005762278

Anne Donnellan

Anne Donnellan grew up in the countryside outside Ennis, County Clare. She has lived and worked in Galway for over forty years. Anne’s earliest background was in primary teaching. Her post graduate studies in Law and International Human Rights led her to lifelong advocacy works in solidarity and justice issues ranging from the progression of age friendly local policy to serving on election observation missions in the Balkans.After retiring from her work with the Department of Education and Skills, facilitating educational access for Travellers, Anne commenced poetry writing in 2015. Her poetry has been published in various publications, literary journals and newspapers.In her free time Anne enjoys choral singing, sea-swimming and attending hurling matches.

Book preview

after Joelle Taylor

It is said that when they opened him

they found a railway depot in his chest

and inside the depot a pile of peak-capped men

lugged black brown to the red roaring bowel

their shovel grumble blended away with banter

his blood, white-capped broth of porter barrel

lungs woodbine smoke scarves in dawn cycles

tongue numb with the habit of silence

dined in side-eye view of the red-jawed one

his fodder-carrying brother forever there

close as packed straw to the barn gable

and if you opened him you would find a wad of betting stubs

tar scented twine and a four-pronged fork stuffed in his chest

hope for spurt in the final stretch

like swallows returned to nest in the rafters

ritual rooted him in the blue vein of loyal

and his mother’s briar-etched face thrown on the hob

it is said that if you opened her

you would find a heart lined with barbed wire

pulse steady as an ash trunk

tear ducts plugged like rain trapped in a concrete trough

four score stabs of departure

her shut-out hurt

Wonder Box

All day on our hunkers mid-March

we worked the rough patch in half shade

of the back cabin. Picked stubborn stones

pulled root stumps bold as winter mangles

our obliging hands cracked like mud

caked in the bowel of a pothole.

We flattened the seeding space rimmed

with tilted timber frame sunk in smoothness

beneath sliding glass face. A wonder box built

for our father’s green tricks where snared sun

coaxed seeds from deep sleep; soil warmed

softened the shock of late frost; vented lid

hardened fragile shoots for the outside.

A country man flush with kernel knowledge

he gifted our table with plain and exotic

nursed from the core

grind of our fledgling hands

his wonder work

a lifetime to understand.

Backyard

That Sunday when the backyard cackle turned frantic

we leapt from the formica table like goats

hunted from a haggard. Trailed by our mother

with deliberate delay of dragged step; too late

to halt the slaughter, plug the path of the prowler.

We count the oval bundles of plumage

lumps of plump strewn by the coop, serrated sinews

buttery yellow legs limp as drenched dandelions.

Fourteen Rhode Island Reds, one Light Sussex Cream

our steady layers for table and trade slain.

We bury the dead where they bathed in