Conamara Blues: Poems

By John O'Donohue

In his third poetry collection, the poet explores the natural and emotional landscape of his native Irish home.
"[John O'Donohue] is the real thing: a poetic priest with the soul of a pagan." —Booklist

Translating the beauty and splendor of his native Conamara into a language exquisitely attuned to the wonder of the everyday, John O'Donohue takes us on a moving journey through real and imagined worlds. Divided into three parts—Approachings, Encounters, and Distances—Conamara Blues at once reawakens a sense of intimacy with the natural world and a feeling of wonder at the mystery of our relationship to this world. Whether exploring the silent, eternal memory of Conamara or focusing on the power of language and the vagaries of human need and passion, O'Donohue tenderly reveals the fragile vulnerability of love and friendship. The result is a musical, transcendent, and deeply moving series of poems that exemplifies O'Donohue at his finest.


Written with penetrating insight and distilled transparence, Conamara Blues offers a singular and lasting imaginative vision of a landscape of hope and possibility—powerfully exhibiting the mastery of a poet at the height of his lyric powers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9780061935763

John O'Donohue

John O'Donohue (1956-2008) was a poet, philosopher, and scholar and a native Gaelic speaker from County Clare, Ireland. He was awarded a PhD in Philosophical Theology from the University of Tübingen, with post-doctoral study of Meister Eckhart. John's numerous international bestselling books include Anam Cara, Beauty, Eternal Echoes, and the beloved To Bless the Space Between Us (published as Benedictus in Europe), among many others, guiding readers through the landscape of the Irish imagination. 

Book preview

APPROACHINGS

I want to watch watching arrive.

I want to watch arrivances.

—HÉLÉNE CIXOUS

I think back gladly on the future.

—HANS MAGNUS ENZENSBENGER

Think of things that disappear.

Think of what you love best,

What brings tears to your eyes.

Something that said adios to you

Before you knew what it meant

Or how long it was for.

—NAOMI SHIHAB NYE

THOUGHT-WORK

In memory of Joe Pilkington

Off course from the frail music sought by words

And the path that always claims the journey,

In the pursuit of a more oblique rhythm,

Creating mostly its own geography,

The mind is an old crow

Who knows only to gather dead twigs,

Then take them back to the vacancy

Between the branches of the parent tree

And entwine them around the emptiness

With silence and unfailing patience

Until what was fallen, withered and lost

Is now set to fill with dreams as a nest.

FIRST WORDS

For Shane O’Donohue

Parents know not what they do

When they coax those first words

Out of you, start a trickle

Of saying that will not cease.

Long after they no longer hear

Your talk, the words they started

Continue to call out for someone

To come near enough to hear

The cadence of what has happened

Deep in the inevitable growing

Heavy and weary of heart

Under the layer of days

Where memory works cold fusions,

As if your voice could carry you

Out of the stillness to the warmth

Of someone who would linger with you

To search the frozen parts for tears

Until a forgotten line fires

Down through the word-hoard

To where your first silence was

Broken, and your rhythm born.

NEST

For J.

I awaken

To find your head

Loaded with sleep,

Branching my chest.

Feel the streams

Of your breathing

Dream through my heart.

From the new day,

Light glimpses

The nape of your neck.

Tender is the weight

Of your sleeping thought

And all the worlds

That will come back

When you raise your head

And look.

BLACK MUSIC IN CONAMARA

For John Barry

To travel through the trough

Of this Sunday afternoon,

As mist thickens into a screen

All over Conamara,

Holding the mountains back

From the clarity their stern solitude

Strives after, releasing the

Reviews for Conamara Blues

[fhc_5 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

John O’Donohue’s second book of 82 poems follows the same format as his first, ‘Echoes of Memory’, this one having three sections, each introduced by poetic or philosophic thoughts authored by others.

Approachings and Distances artistically explore a variety of elemental life themes, while Encounters focuses on the full spectrum of Christ’s life from annunciation to coronation. A beautifully expressed journey for the spirit, there is much here for contemplative reflection.

‘The Nativity’ was one of many that spoke deeply to me as it exquisitely captures the life-giving intimacy of pregnancy and birth. And, of course, ‘Fluent’
“I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.”

I Would recommend this one for poetry fans to experience the beauty of John's use of language..