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Banshee
The long, drawn-out howling of a dog
shut up all night inside the auction ring
out back of our B&B scares awake
the owner's child so that she cries
in the room below our bed, a duet
that in my half-sleep seems to carry
beyond Mount Eagle and Slea Head
to my grandmother's Brooklyn apartment
thirty years ago where, back-lit in her chair,
she told me her story of the banshee,
how as a child she heard it wail
through the townland of Kilvendoney the day
the neighboring farmer died; and again
years later she listened to what sounded
like the keening of an old woman
under Sixth Avenue streetlights,
and knew then that no prayer could save
her oldest son lying in a coma,
meningitis working into his brain,
the pain like a small voice rising to a pitch
beyond all hearing -- a noise so unlike
the steady hum and beep of machines
that monitored your induced sleep
in the outpatient wing where they carved
the lump from you, as it turned out,
benign, the word soothing as the whisper
this child's mother must use to calm
the fractured music in her daughter's throat,
Shush, shush, it's only an old watch dog,
as moonlight softens the tin roof
outside both our windows, and I draw you
closer to me in our rented bed
and rest my hand on your scarred breast.
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Daniel Tobin is the author of nine books of poems, including From Nothing, winner of the Julia Ward Howe Award, The Stone in the Air, his suite of versions from the German of Paul Celan, and most recently Blood Labors, named one of the Best Poetry Books of the Year for 2018 by the New York Times and The Washington Independent Review of Books. His poetry has won many awards, among them the Massachusetts Book Award and fellowships from the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation. His critical and editorial works include Passage to the Center: Imagination and the Sacred in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney, Awake in America, The Book of Irish American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, and To the Many: The Collected Early Works of Lola Ridge. His most recent work is On Serious Earth: Poetry and Transcendence. A trilogy of book-length poems, The Mansions, will appear in 2023. He teaches at Emerson College in Boston. [See also this link for more poems and information.]
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Kiki Smith, American (born Germany), born 1954; Banshee Pearls (detail), 1991; Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Oh, man. That's good! Thank you, Daniel!
Posted by: Jack Skelley | April 11, 2021 at 01:08 PM
Well, I wasn't too scared to read "Banshee", but I am too scared to read it a second time.*
Excellent work!
* I have the added burden of my grandmother spell binding me by telling my 4, 5, 6-year old self that in the far west of Galway where she was a child, the banshees came during the night screaming and driving(!) rattling, horse-drawn black carriages past the houses to be affected by the tragedy.
Posted by: Patrick Clancy | April 11, 2021 at 01:49 PM
another great pick Terence, brilliantly done Daniel
Posted by: lally | April 11, 2021 at 02:22 PM
"-- a noise so unlike/ the steady beep and hum of machines..." what a brilliant transition!
Posted by: Beth Joselow | April 11, 2021 at 02:35 PM
Powerful Powerful
Posted by: Grace Cavalieri | April 11, 2021 at 02:54 PM
So powerful. I read it with trepidation--about the plot line, not the banshees--and OMG the relief the last line brought. Thanks, both Tobin and Winch.
Posted by: clarinda harriss | April 11, 2021 at 03:01 PM
Great poem!
Posted by: Martha Rhodes | April 11, 2021 at 03:10 PM
Beautiful poem!
Posted by: Christopher J Mason | April 11, 2021 at 03:42 PM
Palpable, Daniel. This journey, whew!
Posted by: Glenis Redmond | April 11, 2021 at 03:50 PM
Amazing how much you have managed to intertwine in a poem of this length. The ending is just beautiful!
Posted by: Blake Campbell | April 11, 2021 at 04:03 PM
Thanks, Pat. Banshee trauma is a common affliction in Irish households.
Posted by: Terence Winch | April 11, 2021 at 05:05 PM
Thanks, mo chara is fearr.
Posted by: Terence Winch | April 11, 2021 at 05:07 PM
Thank you, Clarinda.
Posted by: Terence Winch | April 11, 2021 at 05:12 PM
Just beautiful...
Posted by: Mary Winch | April 11, 2021 at 05:40 PM
Perfect art pick for the haunting Banshee!
Posted by: Maureen Owen | April 11, 2021 at 06:44 PM
Thanks, Maureen. (I was hoping someone would notice.)
Posted by: Terence Winch | April 11, 2021 at 07:31 PM
Despite the references to the banshee, the poet seems to move effortlessly, even peacefully, from scene to scene, perhaps because the "you" toward whom the poem has been moving is healed and so clearly beloved.
Posted by: Peter Kearney | April 11, 2021 at 09:49 PM
'Banshee" is a poem as stunning single sentence, perfectly
delivered, with many a pin-drop turn, including the final,
touching last lines.
Posted by: Geoff Young | April 12, 2021 at 11:32 AM
Jeez I love the heartbeat in this poem, how the lines punch forward in their great measure. Music to live by! The trip we take!
Posted by: Don Berger | April 12, 2021 at 02:51 PM
This is gorgeous and moving. I am noting, of course, the way you move from scene to scene...
Posted by: Karen Hildebrand | April 12, 2021 at 07:29 PM
Daniel Tobin's "Banshee" is impressively foreboding and, toward the end, forgiving in its unfolding. Everything in the poem works not only as it might but also as it must. The structure and diction are faultless. Irish lore and medical ills entwine in this apprehensive descent into what is, finally, two gestures of tenderness, simple yet profound. It is the anodyne of touch given and received as caress.
Posted by: Dr. Earle Hitchner | April 18, 2021 at 06:10 PM
"and knew then that no prayer could save" that line brings me back to her back-lit chair....
I like that a lot...
Posted by: Christopher Jane Corkery | April 19, 2021 at 10:36 AM