A Poetic Pot of Gold: Celebrating Irish and Irish American Poetry
We are quickly approaching St. Patrick’s Day, a day when everyone's Irish spirit comes alive, and even leprechauns take a break from mischief to join the celebration. It's a day filled with shades of green everywhere you look, but amidst the jigs and reels, let's not forget the words that dance like Irish sprites in the air—poetry!
In celebration of this festive day, we collected poems by Irish and Irish American poets. Click on the poem’s title below to read the full text. And whether you're reciting a sonnet about the beauty of an Irish sunrise or composing a limerick dedicated to the elusive leprechaun's jig, let the words flow like the River Liffey on the whimsical day of green revelry. Sláinte to the poets, dreamers, and eternal magic of words!
“That morning under a pale hood of sky / I heard the unambiguous scrape of spackling / against the side of our wickered, penitential house.”
From “Irish Poetry” by Billy Collins, 11th Poet Laureate of the United States
“I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, / And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;.."
From “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by William Butler Yeats
“Rain on Rahoon falls softly, softly falling / Where my dark lover lies. / Sad is his voice that calls me, sadly calling / At grey moonrise.”
From “She Weeps over Rahoon” by James Joyce
“Over time, you picture them / after dark, in searches // focusing on streets and houses / close above the churches”
From “Helicopters” by Colette Bryce
"Where the hills / are the colours of a child's eyes, / where my children are distances, horizons...”
From “The Lost Land” by Eavan Boland
“Yet anniversaries / Should have our praise, as trees / Salute the queenly coming of the Spring.”
From “Anniversaries” by Thomas McGrath
“Preparing hair. Something / women do for each other, / plaiting the generations.”
From “Combing” Gladys Cardiff (Eastern Band Cherokee)
“Everything suggests something else, / if you know how to see it.”
From “Pictures from the Floating World” by Susan Donnelly
