Eamonn Wall: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eamonn Wall. Photo by August Jennewein

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The Grassy Garbage of Inwood

 

If anyone walks through here from out of town

he/she/it will hardly be pleased by grinding

boomboxes, the leaves of twenty autumns,

every brand of beer can, bottle, and cigarette

known to the bodega owners of this great city.

And I agree that Inwood Park is an unholy mess

and would be hard pressed indeed to write the

Fall/Spring/Summer/Winter verse The New Yorker

demands for each pristine season because I don't think

that he/she/it in the dentist's waiting room

in Cincinnati would like to read a nature poem

with a beer can in it. No way. Remember too

The New Yorker pays big money for nature poems.

Nevertheless, we are here as usual in the afternoon

and when we pass the first radio you wiggle your

little ankles to the beat and when I put you on the

grass you pull it as if it were the belly hair of paradise:

you find a Winston butt and show it to me before

diving into the vast anthropology of leaves. Your

mother said to me before we left the house: "Don't

let him near the trash," but what can I do,

a child must learn what his hands are for? Finally

it's time for the stream where a bird is drinking

beside a can of Heineken Holland Beer. You walk

on the stones, crouch, and let the water flow

through your soft fingers and I shout to The New Yorker

and the gardening weeklies that this is the natural world.

I take you away from it in tears, brilliant world of

grass and radios stretching out and bursting, and a

slinking butt lying there for you to notice it.

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Eamonn Wall is a native of Co. Wexford, Ireland, who has lived in the US since 1982: in Wisconsin, New York City, Nebraska, and for the past twenty years in St. Louis. His books of poetry and prose include Junction City: New and Selected Poems 1990-2015 (Salmon Poetry, 2015); From the Sin-e Café to the Black Hills (University of Wisconsin Press. 2000); Writing the Irish West: Ecologies and Traditions (Notre Dame, 2011). Current projects include a new collection of poetry and a new book of essays on contemporary writing. He works in international education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

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Comments

[Bill Nevins]

BRILLIANT! Take that, New Yawkah!

[Gerald Fleming]

This is my kind of guy. "...the grass you pull it as if it were the belly hair of paradise" Great dad, fine poet. Thanks for posting this, Terence Winch.

[Beth Joselow]

As it is, love and all. A poem I admire.

[lally]

BAM! an arrow through the apple of pretension and denial on the head(s) of so many and much more than the new yorker...

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for the comment, Mr. Nevins.

[Terence Winch]

Jerry--thanks for your comment. As a native Bronxite, I know where this poem is coming from.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for the comment, Beth.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Michael. I knew you would like this one.

[Grace Cavalieri]

The belly hair of paradise. I'm there
He has that wryness/ twinkle found in IRISH expats and leprechauns.
I would not want a world without any of them.

[Tony Paris]

Maybe all of us should try to write a nature poem with a beer can in it.

[Eileen Reich]

Great poem. I love the phrase “wiggle your little ankles to the beat. I would find myself involuntarily tapping my toes.

[Terence Winch]

Thank you, your laureatship, for the comment.

[Terence Winch]

Fortunately for me, Tony, all my nature poems already have beer cans in them.

[Terence Winch]

Thank you for the comment, Eileen Reich.

[Tony Paris]

To Terence Winch: I would like to read one of your natural beer can poems.

[Don Berger]

I'm really happy that Terence has shown Eamonn Wall's poignant, wry look at the world--it brings my attention to a new way of life I've not come across before, and I'll be looking for more of what I'm sure are other great songs of his. After reading this, I was compelled to look up synonyms for "uplifting," a word that might seem to cheapen all else the poem is and does, but it IS a word that applies. I really like the ease of his line, free of any overly poetic strain--I appreciate that ease along with how intelligent and ambitious this poem is. Bravo, Eamonn!

[Terence Winch]

Thank you, Professor Berger, for this excellent comment.

[David Lehman]

Thank you, Terence, not only for the poem but also for the entertaining and insightful comments. While "the belly hair of paradise" takes first place, another takeaway is the beer can I must put in my next mature poem I mean nature poem.

[Bernard Welt]

Actually reminds me of another Irish writer:
“Nature is no great mother who has borne us. She is our own creation. It is in our brain that she quickens to life. Things are because we see them, and what we see and how we see it depends on the arts that have influenced us. To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.”

[Bernard Welt]

Oh, that was Oscar Wilde.

[Terence Winch]

Thank you, Bernard, for the excellent parallel. Sebastian Melmoth sends his regards.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, David. The bucolic glories of Inwood revealed at last!

[Lawrence Welsh]

I read this one last night before bed, and I let it go. Today, I just can't get the images of that Heineken Holland Beer and those Winston cigarettes out of my mind. It's strange: I didn't think it was a deep image poem, but perhaps it's the deepest of all. Bravo. Eamonn Wall has meant a lot to me for decades now. I'm thrilled that you featured this one. Merry Christmas.

[Terence Winch]

Lawrence---thanks for the comment, and Merry Christmas back to you.

[Lynn Staley]

I have the good fortune to work with Eamonn. He is a gracious and kind teacher, a generous colleague, and has a gentle wit. This is indeed a wonderful poem. Is it not the point of poetry to find beauty in the common things that are overlooked?