Today, as another added extra, we celebrate the launch of the final publication of 2020 from Maytree Press.
Catching Air by Galway based writer, Vinny Glynn-Steed is a sometimes intimate and often powerful exploration of new fatherhood and the wild southern Irish landscape. A wonderful lyrical debut from this award winning writer.
If you are looking for those last minute stocking fillers then you’ll find a host of stunning books in the Maytree Shop including Catching Air which is released today.
Home | Maytree Press (bigcartel.com)
Catching Air
From an upstairs window I hear the procession
moan of horns, tyres jawing gravel
the sound of car doors like a round of applause
from the Gods
and then the silence
but for rustle of rose, orchid, hyacinth
and the people who tend their box of whispers
the birch trees lurking in corners, four heavenly kings
who watched us through time, settle with the mandible
of a wild boar, faces turned towards the rising sun
some bare-breasted artefact a guide in bewildering dark
to this point where a slab and stone border defines a memory
sustenance for all our ghosts
like a child catching air with a butterfly net
or dreams of the astral cartographer
– ordnance survey of stars not yet discovered.
Bog Scripture
Not long after the obligatory dip of Sunday
fingers we search again for meaning
this time up high where curlew calls
are unrestrained – we stand; imposters wind-blushed
under the sanctuary of her hanging sun
and amongst bog rush we measure the daylight in hands
blisters, sores, count the crusted callouses on a landscape
horizontal – where the shadow of a sleán tells us nothing
really changes in a thousand years, how only hands grow
old, hands that found scripture in the sedges
hidden in Faddan More, scattered stones and pebbles
opened to the heat like breathless vowels
and how on a bed of bladderwort, a history
of ancient grammar lies sleeping.
Vinny Glynn-Steed from Galway is widely published at home and abroad. His work has appeared in journals and online in Mexico, the United States, Wales and Northern Ireland. He has featured in publications such as Windows 25th edition, Parhelion and Cinnamon Press anthology. Other publications include Galway Review, Headstuff, Skylight 47, Crannog, Into the Void, Bangor Journal, Tales from the Forest magazine, Ogham Stone, Ofi Press magazine, ROPES, All the Sins, Mediterranean Poetry, Flight, Boyne Berries, Dodging the Rain and Poems in Profile.
Vinny was the winner of the 2020 Allingham poetry competition.
Catching Air by Vinny Glynn-Steed | Maytree Press (bigcartel.com)
