Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

• According to one critic “Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin does many expert things in her poems but does them so quietly that often she remains unheard except by those who have returned many times to listen”.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin • Born in Cork in 1942, one of three children. • Her father was was professor of Irish Literature in UCC and her mother,

a classic children’s author. The family were bilingual: Irish and English.• Folklore is important in her poetry which may be attributed to her

mother’s fiction and father’s vast collection of folklore.• Ní Chuilleanáin, grew up in a strongly republican household. Her father

fought during the War of Independence and was captured during the Civil War.

• Her great uncle was executed at the end of the 1916 Easter Rising. • These events inspired Ní Chuilleanáin a great sense of national pride

who describes herself as “Gaelic-speaking female papist whose direct and indirect ancestors, men and women, on both sides, were committed to detaching Ireland from the British Empire”.

• When a poem succeeds it “creates its own meagre, mysterious context, its present moment in which it exists fully”; and that “To think about what a poem is you need to consider the nature of the poet’s self which in turn must be part of the content.”

• Ní Chuilleanáin sees the intentional mystery in her poems as her “right” to include and that as a poet she can create her unique vision of the world in whatever way she chooses.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin on her poetry

Our Five Headings….

1. Explores personal memories and experiences2. Language can be both simple and complex,

concrete and abstract3. Great imagination 4. Strong sense of place in her poetry5. Poems make use of folklore, myth and fairy

tale

Gothic

Street

• This poem can be described as a vignette of unrequited love with a gothic twist.

• Beautifully cinematic it is based on a real girl who worked in a butcher’s shop: the girl was so beautiful in her white uniform, it inspired Ní Chuilleanáin to write this poem.

• Joseph Conrad’s book The Rover also inspired this poem. The book is about a mysterious girl who goes out with a mob and comes back with her skirt bloody up to her knee. This is most likely what inspired the danger and mystery in this poem.

Street

He fell in love with the butcher’s daughterWhen he saw her passing by in her white trousersDangling a knife on a ring at her belt.He stared at the dark shining drops on the paving-stones.

The poem is told in the 3rd person narrative, this allows us to take a voyeuristic look at the world of the characters in the poem.

We are introduced to a strange and unusual combination of themes: romance, butchery, beauty and danger.

The opening line draws us in, we sense there is something edgy about the situation.

Butchery is a male-dominated profession and the nature of this work is not usually associated with women.

We get the sense that the woman is not aware of the entranced state the male character is in. Her white trousers contrasts

beautifully with her bloody knife, still dripping with blood.

Street

One day he followed herDown the slanting lane at the back of the shambles.A door stood half-openAnd the stairs were brushed and clean,Her shoes paired on the bottom stop,Each tread marked with with the red crescentHer bare heels left, fading to faintest at the top.

The scene becomes intense as the man follows the woman into the slaughter house- this is where she slaughters animals.

Suggests the man is not apart of her world- he can only glimpse in Slaughter house is

unexpectedly clean.

Her shoes are all that he sees of her, the woman disappears up the steps and all the remains of her presence is the ‘red crescent” that her heels have left behind

Street

• We are aware throughout the last stanza that she appears unattainable and very separate to the man who has fallen in love with her.

• He is following her, watching her, longing for her, but she keeps moving away from him and finally disappears like her bloody footprints that fade “to faintest at the top”.

• The world of the butcher’s daughter is secret, unknown and unfamiliar and this may be what draws him to her.

• We like the man, are left wondering about her footprints and what further mystery lies at the top of the stairs.

• What did you dream last night?

** Let this poem appeal to your imagination. Although important to learn what inspired this poem it is equally important to discover our own interpretation and response to the poem. We may see things that Ní Chuilleanáin never saw which allows us to give our own unique meaning to the poem.

Following“I suppose I am really trying to bring my father back to life”

• Ní Chuilleanáin wrote this poem after attending a prize giving ceremony in which she was following her friend through a crowd of people, searching for the material of his suit (he was the only one there wearing one). This reminded her of her father, who had always worn a suit and hat.

• Written long after her father’s death, Ní Chuilleanáin appears to be recapturing her father from memories she has of him.

• In this poem, Ní Chuilleanáin takes us on a dream-like journey to a fair, into fairy tales with ghosts moving across bogs and finally to a library where she reconnects with her father.

Following

So she follows the trail of her father’s coat through the fairShouldering past beasts packed solid as books, And the dealing men nearly as slow to give way-A block of belly, a back like a mountain,A shifting elbow like a plumber’s bend-When she catches a glimpse of a shirt-cuff, a handkerchief,Then the hard brim of his hat, skimming along,

We are introduced to the world of a fair: like a word picture full of rich imagery, simile, metaphor, alliteration and symbolism.

We see almost a panicked girls perspective who is uncomfortable in this male world where both the men and the animals are indifferent to her.

These are all symbols of refinement which contrasts with the earlier descriptions of the “beasts” in the market scene- she sees her father as being different from these “dealing men”.

Following

Until she is tracing light footstepsAcross the shivering bog of starlight,The dead corpse risen from the wakehouseGliding before her in a white habit.The ground is forested with gesturing trunks,Hands of women dragging needles,Half choked heads in the water of cuttings,Mouths that roar like the noise of the fair day.

The concrete world in the previous stanza dissolves into a gothic one From the market place to

“tracing light footsteps…shivering bog”.

We feel the palpable presence of the spiritual. She is now following a dead corpse into a different realm. This “dead corpse” is from a folktale, Eiléan heard as a child.***

Depict enchanted/disjointed images.- Hanted forest- May refer to the suit?- Cut flowers trying to

sustain life in water- May link with fair in

stanza 1 Poet creates otherworldly place, with an infusion of fairytale elements, which works like a dream. Here, we as readers can respond imaginatively to the obscure imagery and descriptions.

The Dead Corpse

***Like the girl in both the poem and the folktale, Eiléan maybe following the dead corpse which could be an invocation of her father (someone who introduced Eiléan to folktales). The gothic landscape maybe an imaginative space where she can spend time with her father who no longer is with her.

Could this be a story of the wake: a girl staying with the corpse and it came to life. Perhaps Ní Chuilleanáin feels that by remembering her father in this poem he too comes back to life.

FollowingShe comes to where he is seatedWith whiskey poured out in two glassesIn a library where the light is clean,His clothes all finely laundered,Ironed facings and linings.The smooth foxed leaf has been hiddenIn a forest of fine shuffling,The square of white linenThat held three dropsOf her heart’s blood is shelvedBetween the gatheringsThat go to make a book-The crushed flowers among the pages crackThe spine open, push the bindings apart.

We arrive in a library where her father sits with two glasses of whiskey (Eiléan’s father, in later years, drank whiskey for her arthritis).

Her father is neatly groomed- the poet asmits she wanted to capture him and the men of his generation

It is no coincidence they are reunited in the library. Her father was a learned man and Eiléan followed in his footsteps, the library is a place where both felt at ease and comfortable, where they frequently met and talked.

Perhaps a reference to one of her father’s books in his collection. It is like there are memories encased in these books. Or more literally: the leaf on the forest floor symbolizes change and reminds us of natures cycle

We are not sure what these represent but “three” is a mystical and spiritual number, featured in many fairy tales. Blood is the essence of life, in fairytales it has magical qualities.

*** See note on memory

Following: Fairy Tales

• The poet has said that the girl had to do something to bring her father back. Similar to fairytales, the protagonists has to do something in order to get what they are looking for e.g. Shrek must rescue Princess Fiona to get his forest back. In a similar way, the girl has to overcome obstacles to get her father back.

• Perhaps the journey thus far in the poem is the task and the reward is seeing her father again.

Following• The poets comments: “I find the idea of hiding something in

a book really interesting; you cant see it but it is there… like tucking things away in your memory…. One of the functions of memory… (that something) is in the past, it isn’t now, except it doesn’t work like that, things keep coming back.”

• This notion of memories coming back is clearer in the last two lines of the poem. The past will not stay past, it is alive. The crushed flowers between the pages in the book start to grow and make memories, come to life again.. “push the bindings apart”.. Memories can no longer be held or hidden in the book, they “crack” open the spine. Her father is dead and she is left with only her memories of him. Some may think she is trying to retrieve him in this poem- follow his lead, hoping in the end to revive him.

The Bend in the Road

• Written in response to the death of Ní Chuilleanáin’s sister in 1990. The poet remembered one day her sister was ill but still moving around in her dressing gown. She had looked at her and thought there is a space that is going to be empty and so it proved.

• As her sister loved Italy, but was too ill to fully enjoy it, the poem was written and is set in Italy.

• When travelling in a car, her son becomes ill. Although this happened a couple of years after her sisters death, it reminded her of time passing and of empty spaces left behind.

The Bend in the Road

This is the place where the childFelt sick in the car and they pulled overAnd waited in the shadow of a house.A tall tree like a cat’s tail waited too.They opened the windows and breathedEasily, while nothing moved. Then he was better.

An immediate sense that the poet is taking us on a journey. The poet recalls the place where they pulled over and opened the car window to get some air for her sick son.

There is a stillness infused with inventive imagery which enhances the scene.

This scene is instantly relatable. Once her son feels better, they start back on to their journey.

The Bend in the Road

Over twelve years it has become the placeWhere you were sick one day on the way to the lake.You are taller now than us.The tree is taller, the house quite covered inWith green creeper, and the bendIn the road is as silent as ever it was on that day.

We are now 12 years into the future, the poet is still recalling this place where her son felt ill

She reflects on all the changes that have happened since then: the trees are taller, her son is taller, the house is now covered and creepier. Yet the road is as silent as it was.

The Bend in the Road

Piled high, wrapped lightly, like the one cumulus cloudIn a perfect sky, softly packed like the air,Is all that went on in those years, the absences,The faces never long absent from thought,The bodies alive then and the airy space they took upWhen we saw them wrapped and sealed by sicknessGuessing the piled weight of sleepWe knew they could not carry for long; This is the place of their presence: in the tree, in the air.

The memory is not static- it is woven into other recollections “piled high”. This stanza widens the scope of description from the house, the tree and the bend in the road, to the sky.

The speaker accumulates past experiences and organises them in language- giving the poem a spatial dimension to the telling of the story.

As well as external experiences we also gather experiences of loss and absence and memories of loved ones who have suffered illness and have passed away.These are now brought together and given witness to in the voice of the speaker.

Why do you think piled is repeated?

Bend in the Road

• The poem stands as a monument to place and time, to absence and presence, to past and present.

• The poem pays tribute to the invisible, the unseen presence of other things that- like the bend in the road- wait in silence to be discovered and brought to life.

Translation

• Around 30,000 women were incarcerated in the Magdalen institutions (laundries) over a period of 150 years.

• Many were incarcerated against their will at the request of the state, their family or priests, for a variety of reasons including growing up in care, stealing, prostitution and getting pregnant outside of marriage.. Or even too promiscuous!

• After their doors shut and a property developer bought the convent, the remains of 155 women were discovered on the grounds of the convent.

• After the bodies were exhumed, cremated and reburied in Glasnevin cemetary, the following poem was read at the ceremony.

Translation

The soil frayed and sifted evens the score-There are women here from every county,Just as they were in the laundry.

White light blinded and bleached outThe high relief of a glance, where steam dancedAround stone drains and giggled and slipped across water.

Reference to the women being buried from “every county”.

This line is left hanging. The soil that they were and are apart of has been “sifted” and “frayed”. This is ambiguous: How does it even the score? How could someone right such a wrong? A power balance between the nuns and the women is hinted at: nuns had absolute power, women were subservient and impotent.

Upon entry into the laundry they were give new names and became anonymous; here they remain in the grave: abandoned and anonymous but together

Stanza 2: glimpse the happiness these women could have enjoyed.“White light” may symbolise innocence and hope but is blinded- neither see it or are exposed to it, it is “bleached out”. Alliteration of blinded and bleached shows the horrific treatment of the girls and we further empathise with them. Like dirty linen, their stains/ transgressions are “bleached” out and happiness erased.

Young ladies should dance around lively and giggling. Ironically, it is the objects of labour that express the women’s lost ability to dance and laugh.

Translations

Assist them now, ridges under the veil, shifting,Searching for their parents, their names, The edges of words grinding against their nature,

As if, when water sank between rotten teethOf soap, and every grasp seemed melted, one voiceHad begun, rising above the shuffle and hum

The girls now become a mere ridge under evil of the anonymous earth, but they are shifting.

They are shifting, unsettled: searching for their parents, names, stolen identities and lives.

May refer to the humiliating manner in which the girls were spoken to, which ground them down. This highlights the corruption that forced these women into labour.

Like a prayer; Appealing not to anyone in particular, maybe asking us to remember them, and God to finally let them rest in peace.

Soap can be seen as a metaphor here for the victims soul which has been eroded from the women’s daily labours or the negligent treatment of the women.

Both in the poem and in the grave, the women’s identities merge, their voice is communicating beyond the grave in a “shuffle and hum”.

Translation

Until every pocket in her skull blared with a note-Allow us now to hear it, sharp as an infant’s cryWhile the grass takes root, while the steam rises:

Washes clean of idiom . the baked crustOf words that made my temporary name.A parasite that grew in me . that spellLifted . I lie in earth sifted to dust .Let the bunched keys I bore slacken and fall .I rise and forget . a cloud over my time

One voice is heard now: the last word is given to one of the nuns whose voice is compare to an “infants cry”. Her speech holds a “note” of disgust

It speaks as time moves on “grass takes root”. We are asks to “allow” the nuns to speak.

She recognises the spell this parasite has cast on her. She speaks as if she was possessed by some evil or brainwashed.

Like the girls, the nuns were told to change their identities. This hints at how her “temporary” name or being a nun had corrupted or altered her true self.

The “bunched” keys reminds us of her authority. She says she will “forget” but this “cloud” may insinuate her inability to forgive or forget the ignominy (shame) and impact of what she has done.

Translation

• Although Ní Chuilleanáin regularly refers to nuns affectionately in her poems, in this poem she is different. She addresses a darker side and explores the role that many of them played in oppressing and institutionalizing thousands of helpless women, women whose lives were stolen and whose deaths were hidden.

• This poem gives a voice to these women. Those that were silenced, Ní Chuilleanáin seeks to transform their silence into expression. It also gives a voice to the nuns who were responsible for this atrocity.

Translation

• This poem ensures that we do not forget “a cloud over our time.”

• There is no attempt to wrap this one up nicely. The poem simply demands recognition of this event.

• Once critic remarked that this story is exhumed here and reburied in dignity. In doing this the poet exposes the deeds of the unjust, no less than the sufferings of the just.

To Niall Woods and Xenya Ostrovskaia married in Dublin on 9 September 2009

• Ní Chuilleanáin composed and read this on her son’s wedding day. This is called an epithalamium.

• This civil ceremony which excluded religious readings or iconography, inspired Eiléan to write this. Initially she was to write from the book of Ruth but, as she could not she disguised it in this poem amongst her many references to folktales and fairytales that she read to her son whilst he was growing up.

• She alludes to a man going on a quest, overcoming adversity/hardship and finally getting the girl and living happily ever after.

• She also included Russian folktales for the bride and her family.

• The poem captures stories from both cultures but more importantly it highlights the unity of cultures in folktales. The names and places in these stories are different but the messages and the journeys are often very similar.

• The poem is ultimately a mother’s blessing to her son and daughter-in-law as they embark on a new life together

To Niall Woods and

Xenya Ostrovskaia

married in Dublin on

9 September 2009

When you look out across the fieldsAnd you both see the same starPitching its tent on the point of the steeple-That is the time to set out on your journey,With half a loaf and your mother’s blessing.

Leave behind the places that you knew: All that you leave behind you will find once more,You will find it in the stories;The sleeping beauty in her high towerWith her talking cat asleepSolid beside her feet- you will see her again.

Poet is directly addressing her son and his bride.

When two people see the same star, it is the right time to set out on a new “journey” i.e. marriage. They can symbolise our hopes and dreams. This line alludes to an old folktale*

which her son would be familiar with. The moral is to always be optimistic, hopeful and trusting and you will get your happily ever after.

She instructs the couple to begin their journey; she repeats whatever they leave behind they will find once more.

Lists well known fairytale characters. They will see them again. This repetition is important. She may be referring to when they have their own children and share their own stories. Or something more profound- are their truths or eternal messages in these stories that will always be there?

Old Folktale

• Three sons go on a quest. The firs two sons take a full loaf from the mother for the long journey; the third takes half a loaf and his mothers blessing. He meets a hungry person and gives him his only food- he is rewarded with valuable advice on how to succeed in his quest.

• Moral: Third son, unlike his brothers, is not afraid of the journey- he is an eternal optimist, the hopeful and trusting one who lives from an open heart and is taken care of. The third son succeeds in getting his princess, the kingdom and rescuing his two older brothers along the way.

To Niall Woods and

Xenya Ostrovskaia

married in Dublin on 9

September 2009

When the cat wakes up he will speak in Irish and RussianAnd every night he will tell you a different taleAnd the firebird that stole the golden apples,Gone every morning out of the emperor’s garden,And about the King of Ireland’s Son and the Enchanter’s Daughter.

The story the cat does not know is the Book of RuthAnd I have no time to tell you how she faredWhen she went out at night and she was afraid,In the beginning of the barley harvest,Or how she trusted to strangers and stood by her word:

You will have to trust me, she lived happily ever after.

In this stanza she marries both Irish and Russian folktales*.

This Irish folktale contains many of the same elements of storytelling: a hero, a villain, a quest, a magical helper, a princess and a happy ever after.

In this final stanza, the poet refers to the book of Ruth. The story is about Ruth who is rewarded for her faithfulness, kindness and integrity with protection and prosperity. This may be her hope for her son and daughter in law.

She wishes that they remain faithful and kind towards each other and that this will be rewarded with protection and prosperity. The final line indicates the poet giving them her blessing and her belief that they will live happily ever after.

*Russian Folktale• Long ago, a man named Tsar owned a wonderful orchard which

grew golden apples. However every night a fire bird would steal the apples. Tsar’s youngest son Ivan informed him of this, and Tsar instructs all three of his sons to catch the firebird and bring it to him.

• Ivan, assisted by a grey wolf, caught the firebird, whilst obtaining a horse and meeting a beautiful princess named Elena.

• At the border of his fathers kingdom, Elena and Ivan stop to rest. However, Ivan’s brothers catch them, kills Ivan and threatens to kill Elena if she tells anyone.

• Ivan lies dead for thirty days before the grey wolf comes and revives him. He arrives on the wedding day of Elena and one of his brother.

• Tsar is horrified when he hears the truth from Elena and throws the two brothers in jail. Ivan and Elena live happily ever after.

Kilcash from the Irish, c 1800• Ní Chuilleanáin was asked to translate this poem by one of her

graduate students. They were writing a book about the history of Kilcash and re-edited the poem “Caoine Cill Chais”.

• The original’s author is unknown but it is thought to be written around 1800 when Ireland was profoundly affected by the plantations.

• Native ruling classes were replaced by the protestant ascendancy, the penal laws denied political and most land owning rights to Catholics.

• The poem focuses on both the ideological (shared ideas or beliefs) and ecological (good or bad things people do to change their physical environment) changes in Ireland as a result of this period.

• For example, in the 1600s, Ireland was a heavily wooded country but by the late 1700’s the native woodlands were destroyed to aid commercial adventures and no place to hide for the dispossessed Irish.

Kilcash from the Irish, c 1800

• This poem laments Ireland’s loss, exemplified by the collapse of Kilcash after the passing of its owner Lady Iveagh (Margaret Butler).

• Kilcash, now a ruin, has been long associated with Irish history. Lady Iveagh, from a staunchly Catholic Derry Family is the lady in the poem, who married Colonel Thomas Butler of Kilcash Castle.

• The poem captures the demise of Kilcash and its family thus symbolising the demise of many Irish families.

• After Lady Iveagh died, the woods were sold off, having a devastating effect on the people, land and animals of Kilcash.

• The poem waits in hope for the return of the glory days of old, but Kilcash remains in ruin

Kilcash from the Irish, c 1800

What will we do now for timberWith the last of the woods laid low-No work of Kilcash nor its household,The bell is silenced now,Where the lady lived with such honour,No woman so heaped with praise,Earls came across oceans to see herAnd heard the sweet words of Mass.

It’s cause of my long afflictionTo see your neat gates knocked down,The long walks affording no shade nowAnd the avenue overgrown,The fine house that kept out the weather,Its people depressed and tamed;And their names with the faithful departed, The Bishop and Lady Iveagh!

The poem looks at colonialism’s impact on nature and heritage, capturing the demise of a great estate and the sense of abandonment felt by the Irish.

Stanza one, we hear the voice of the desperate Irish asking what will happen to the woods and occupants of Kilcash; it laments the loss of Lady Iveagh, the heroine of the song, who was greatly admired.

Reflects the great despair and anguish when the Irish watched the gradual disintegration and deterioration of the gardens and the house.

Reference here to her faith and importance. She died and was buried at Kilcash and at her funeral her piety, charity and universal benevolence (kindness) were praised.

Kilcash from the Irish, c 1800The geese and the duck’s commotion,The eagle’s shout, are no more,The roar of the bees gone silent,Their wax and their honey storeDeserted. Now at eveningThe musical birds are stilledAnd the cuckoo is dumb in the treetopsThat sang lullaby to the world.

Even the deer and the huntersThat follow the mountain wayLook down upon us with pity,The house that was famed in its day;The smooth wide lawn is all broken;No shelter from wind and rain;The paddock has turned to a dairyWhere the fine creatures grazed.

Stanza 3 and 4 look at the effect of the social and political change on the flora and fauna of Kilcash. They are silent and stilled.

The people and animals that moved on “mountain way” look on in pity at the diminished house. The once well maintained lawns are overgrown and exposed; the paddock, once a place of order and refinement, is now a dairy.

Kilcash from the Irish, c 1800

Mist hangs low on the branchesNo sunlight can sweep aside,Darkness falls among daylightAnd the streams are all run dry;No hazel, no holly or berry,Bare naked rocks and cold;The forest park is leaflessAnd all the game gone wild.

And now the worst of our troubles:She has followed the prince of the Gaels-He has borne off the gentle maiden,Summoned to France and to Spain.Her company laments herThat she fed with silver and gold:One who never preyed on the peopleBut was the poor souls friend.

Stanza five shows where there was light there is now darkness. Streams are no longer gushing with water but run dry. No fruit grows on the trees: natures cycles is corrupted. Nature is now spoiled and thwarted.

Stanza 6 is the most puzzling. Previous to this we see the catastrophic effect of the Lady’s passing has on Kicash- here we reach the climax and the worst of our troubles.

Some believe this stanza moves from the local interest of Lady Iveagh to an unspecified Irish leader.

In an inverse manner the specifically local poem has been given national significance as the cutting down of the woods had a deeper symbolic resonance with the Irish. The cutting change in subject matter may suggest the possibility of two similar poems combined (could explain the change in subject matter.)

Kilcash from the Irish, c 1800

My prayer to Mary and JesusShe may come home safe to us hereTo dancing and rejoicingTo fiddling and bonfireThat our ancestor’s house will rise up,Kilcash built up anewAnd from now to the end of the story May it never be laid low

The final stanza appeals to Mary and Jesus to bring Lady Iveagh back home. Lady Iveagh has passed on and they do not really expect her back but the motif of the leader who will return is a common one among oppressed nations.

Final vision shown here is apocalyptic.

The Second Voyage

• One of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s famous poems, written when she was in Oxford and not particularly happy. Her family were in Rome and she wanted to be back home in Ireland. Her work at Oxford had her living an isolated life.

• She was in love with a marine biologist and found herself fascinated with the sea. Whilst out in a small boat on her own she reminded her of Odysseus and the prophesy that he would have set out on a second voyage. At this moment she connected Odysseus and her need to return home.

• Eiléan is Odysseus- trapped in a repetitive experience in which one cannot escape. At the time, issue with female poets using themselves has heroines- she spoke through Odysseus.

Odysseus: A Greek Mythic Hero

• Renowned for his cunning and strength• The Odyssey, an epic story describing Odysseus’ on

his adventures as he tries to return home from a war. He angered Poseidon, who punished him by killing his men and making Odysseus’s time at sea longer (10 years).

• However, Odysseus survives all that has happened to him. His courage, wits and endurance enable him to come through each and every difficulty and arrive home safely.

The Second Voyage

• Ní Chuilleanáin describes herself as having an “Odysseus Complex”, from a young age she has wanted to be an explorer- free to go to different places and discover new things.

• In this poem she takes Odysseus and reverses our perception of him. He appears to us confused, beaten and unsure of himself.

• In this unconventional reimagining of Odysseus the emphasis shifts from the conventional image of a hero to the final vision of a man caught in a trap and broken.

The Second

VoyageOdysseus rested on his oar and sawThe ruffled foreheads of the wavesCrocodiling and mincing past: he rammedThe oar between their jaws and looked downIn the simmering sea where scribbles of weed definedUncertain depth, and the slim fishes progressedIn fatal formation, and thought

If there was a singleStreak of decency in these waves now, they’d be ridgedPocked and dented with the battering they’ve had,And we could name them as Adam named the beasts,Saluting a new one with dismay, or a notorious oneWith admiration; they’d notice us passingAnd rejoice at our shipwreck, but theseHave less character than sheep and need more patience.

Ní Chuilleanáin blends the classical with the biblical with the form of Odysseus and Adam. She undoes the mythical figure of Odysseus and attempts to harness the power of the myth.

Odysseus is not in control, he is angrily protesting at the irrepressible sea.

The sea seems indifferent to the violent “rammed” oar. The repetition of s further emphasizes this effect. The fish swim in a “fatal formation”.

From Genesis 2:20, Adam becomes lord and owner of all beasts, Odysseus tries to assert himself and gain control of the waves.

The sea is personified here. Odysseus’ attempts to dent, batter and name the sea (By naming the sea, he may become owner.) However, the sea is impervious to this.

I know what I’ll do he said;I’ll park my ship in the crook of a long pier(and I’ll take you with me he said to the oar)I’ll face the rising ground and walk awayFrom tidal waters, up riverbedsWhere herons parcel out the miles of stream,Over gaps in the hills, through warmSilent valleys, and when I meet a farmerBold enough to look me in the eyeWith ‘where are you off to with that longWinnowing fan over your shoulder?’There I will stand stillAnd I’ll plant you for a gatepost or a hitching-postAnd leave you as a tidemark. I can go backAnd organize my house then.But the profoundUnfenced valleys of the ocean still held him;He had only the oar to make them keep their distance;The sea was still frying under the ship’s side.

Some critics believed this journey of Odysseus’ inland represents his attempt to stabilise the uncontrollable ocean against the ordered, named and owned land in which he wishes to be.

Like in Castaway, the Oar is personified and becomes Odysseus friend.

He wants to journey as far as he can from the influence of the water

There I will stand still. His oar marks his territory, his conquest. One must note that the oar would be useless here on land. Its usefulness to him is no more.

“Tidemark” is still at sea and he is only imagining his escape to the land.

Odysseus recognises that the “unfenced valleys of the ocean” still hold him and that the oar is his only means of protection from the “frying” sea.

The Second

VoyageHe considered the water-lilies, and thought about fountainsSpraying as wide as willows in empty squares,The sugarstick of water clattering into the kettle,The flat lakes bisecting the rushes. He remembered spiders and frogsHousekeeping at the roadside in brown trickles floored with mud,Horse troughs, the black canal, pale swans at dark:His face grew damp with tears that tastedLike his own sweat or the insults of the sea.

Odysseus halts and is overcome with longing to imagine water in its tamed, feminine and cultivated form.

All refer to attempts man has made to tame the waters power. This can be compared to the previous mention of Adam- naming the beasts.

Water here is portrayed as a contained element- flowing through things; it is not a force to conquer.

He is overwhelmed by his inability to escape from or control the powerful ocean; he is confused and can no longer distinguish signs of his own distress, “tears” and “sweat” from the sea.

The Second Voyage• This poem seems to continue to postpone the

inevitable- there is a constant need to get home.• Eiléan said herself that the poem has a fast

pace with a sense of unendingness. She liked to write about things she couldn’t understand and found this poem as she wrote it organically took its own shape.

• How does the water interact with people?