Irish poets ponder a holy place at the edge A Contrary review by Grace Wells 
Voices at the World’s Edge, Irish Poets on Skellig Michael Edited by Paddy Bushe Syracuse University Press 2010 Buy this book…> Voices at the World’s Edge is a nerve-tingling description of place, threaded throughout with wonder. “Before my first visit to Skellig Michael,” Kerry Hardie writes, “I asked myself why. I felt there was something deeply unnatural in anchorites choosing to live on bare rock eight miles from the nearest inhabited island.” This why persists. Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill asks of the monks, “Were all their wits astray/in loving God and hating their own?” What, Theo Dorgan questions, was in their minds? Through the book’s fragments, its shards of poetry and essay, some of Ireland’s leading poets offer captivating responses to the questions the Skelligs pose. John F. Deane describes these “extreme islands” as a “strict and overwhelming, dark-walled bastion” where “the longed-for monastery remains at the rough-hewn edge/of heaven, at the sensuous ridge of Hell.” Dorgan disembarks from the ferryboat to exchange “one element for another; mocked by the wheeling gulls/we climb heavy-footed into air.” From the pier there is a “precipitous” climb of 600 steps carved into rock. The steps are, Macdara Woods writes, “an amazement. A drunkenness of steps akin to the drunkenness of the deeps.” They “hang suspended, swaying almost, on an invisible chain anchored by wind-carved pillars of rock,” before eventually revealing the “urban cohesion” of bee-hive huts, the “stone Eden garden of the air.” Aided by John Minihan’s striking black and white photographs, the reader gradually charts the islands, forming a rough mental map of the “maze of steps”, the Saddle, the lighthouse, the impossible climb to and through the Eye of the Needle. Gradually the rocks reveal their language and treasures: sea-campion, hawkbit, pearlwort and birds. Little Skellig is home to 500,000 gannets. The habits and activities of puffins, shearwaters and storm petrels permeate these pages. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill attests the rock is “every inch of it/alive with birds.” Nonetheless, these beguiling, ever-startling descriptions mask the fact that the book’s true essence is an exploration of the Skelligs’ spiritual power. “It was the monks who gave this place a meaning which we still try to receive with our cruder modern antennae,” Bernard O’Donoghue feigns, the poets slipping into the hermits’ religious space with delicious ease. Paddy Bushe’s “Illuminated Manuscript” opens with the ageless “Last night I boiled the young sorrel leaves/I had gathered behind the monastery” and concludes: For supper, read collatio, For hut, read cell or Scriptorium, For pen, read quill, For notebook, read vellum, For gas-lamp, read rush-light, For pooled, read illuminated. Deane echoes this timelessness with the observation, “not one thing changed” and attributes religious qualities to the rock itself with “its laud-birds”, “murmurous ocean”, and “the music of the winds/like an old plain chant.” The poets are not confined by monastic discipline or doctrine, and their work brims with a numinous sensibility befitting our pluralistic age. Skellig stone “expands more than it encloses,” Bushe writes as he shrinks “Into myself, into my pencil, into the island.” Deane finds the Skelligs a “getting away, and a getting to,” and Woods listens to the island’s “stone cadences” only to be possessed “as by a slow air.” Voices at the World’s Edge resonates with a precious and profound stillness, but what keeps this book earthed, touching and relevant, is its utterly sympathetic humanity. Poets stumble, grope by torch-light, clamber on their knees, sleep badly, and dance in the night with a “hundred-feet drop” behind them. Sean Lysaght has a “scuffle with buffetings” and creeps up on all fours. Eiléan ní Chuillenáin is almost entirely stuck “In the spot where last year a man fell and smashed.” This fusion of sacred and humane unites most effectively in Cathal Ó Searcaigh’s vivacious and powerful poem series, which speaks for a monk whose enjoyment was “ever wine and lovemaking.” His delightful admission “It’s pure joy/to be impure/with you,” comfortably balances the book’s loftier sentiments. Grace Wells is an English poet living in Ireland. Her debut collection, When God has been called Away to Greater Things, was published by Dedalus Press in May 2010. Tip Jar | Bookstore | Index of Reviewshttp://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20/detail/1906614350http://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20/detail/1906614326http://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20/detail/1906614326WritersFund.htmlhttp://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20Reviews.htmlhttp://astore.amazon.com/contrary-20/detail/1906614350shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2shapeimage_1_link_3shapeimage_1_link_4shapeimage_1_link_5

© 2010  |  all rights reserved

about us  |  xml feed  |  Contrary ® is a registered trademark of Contrary Magazine  |  donate $1  | contact us

COMMENTARY | POETRY | FICTION | CHICAGO ARCHIVES | ABOUT | SUBMISSIONS | BOOKSHOP | DONATE | CONTACT | SHAREArchives.htmlContrary.htmlSubmissions.htmlBookshop.htmlWritersFund.htmlContact.htmlhttp://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=152&winname=addthis&pub=contrary&source=men-152&lng=en-us&s=undefined&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contrarymagazine.com%2F&title=Contrary%20Magazine&logo=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contrarymagazine.com%2Fcontramazon.jpg&logobg=F5F4F4&logocolor=&ate=AT-contrary/-/-/4b3771ea6b8ea1a5/1/4b329e0c06baac67&uid=4b329e0c06baac67&CXNID=2000001.5215456080540439074NXC&pre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.contrarymagazine.com%2FContrary%2FAutumn-2009.html&tt=0shapeimage_3_link_0shapeimage_3_link_1shapeimage_3_link_2shapeimage_3_link_3shapeimage_3_link_4shapeimage_3_link_5shapeimage_3_link_6
http://www.contrarymagazine.com/
WINTER 2011 SENESCENCE KELLY DAVIO GRAVE QUARTET LAURENCE DAVIES DEAR ODYSSEUS: THREE POEMS NICELLE DAVIS A FUNERAL EDWARD Mc WHINNEY EVERY GRAIN EVERY HAIR JANE WILLIAMS MY QUOTA OF JOY VICCY ADAMS RECENT AWARD WINNERS REBECCA LEHMANN SHERMAN ALEXIE MEREDITH MARTINEZ REVIEWS ROLAND BARTHES SUSAN FRODERBERG THE BRITISH SHORT STORY KATE BERNHEIMER THOMAS ESPEDAL VOICES AT THE WORLD’S EDGE Winter_2011.htmlSenescence_Kelly_Davio.htmlSenescence_Kelly_Davio.htmlGrave_Quartet_Laurence_Davies.htmlGrave_Quartet_Laurence_Davies.htmlDear_Odysseus_Nicelle_Davis.htmlDear_Odysseus_Nicelle_Davis.htmlA_Funeral_Edward_Mc_Whinney.htmlA_Funeral_Edward_Mc_Whinney.htmlEvery_Grain_Every_Hair_Jane_Williams.htmlEvery_Grain_Every_Hair_Jane_Williams.htmlViccy_Adams_My_Quota_of_Joy.htmlViccy_Adams_My_Quota_of_Joy.htmlhttp://www.contrarymagazine.com/Contrary/Factory.htmlSherman_Alexie_Census.htmlhttp://www.contrarymagazine.com/Contrary/Love.htmlReviews.htmlRoland_Barthes_Mourning_Diary.htmlSusan_Froderberg_Old_Border_Road.htmlBritish_Short_Story_Liggins_Munder_Robbins.htmlKate_Bernheimer_Horse_Flower_Bird.htmlTomas_Espedal_Tramp.htmlshapeimage_5_link_0shapeimage_5_link_1shapeimage_5_link_2shapeimage_5_link_3shapeimage_5_link_4shapeimage_5_link_5shapeimage_5_link_6shapeimage_5_link_7shapeimage_5_link_8shapeimage_5_link_9shapeimage_5_link_10shapeimage_5_link_11shapeimage_5_link_12shapeimage_5_link_13shapeimage_5_link_14shapeimage_5_link_15shapeimage_5_link_16shapeimage_5_link_17shapeimage_5_link_18shapeimage_5_link_19shapeimage_5_link_20shapeimage_5_link_21shapeimage_5_link_22