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I’m so GODDAMNED FRUSTRATED at the state of Irish poetry.
I’m not talking about poems in English by Irish poets, I’m talking about poems in Irish by Irish poets! Especially ones you learn in Junior Cycle Irish. Stuff like ‘Stadeolaiocht’ and others. Want to know the premise of Stadeolaiocht???
a man is waiting at the bus stop
he goes to check the bus app on his phone to see when the bus will arrive
as he’s looking up, the bus is driving past him, bus driver staring him down.
that’s it. That’s the poem. The poem they want us to write a couple of paragraphs explaining the themes of. This is what we have to work with. Another one: Jeaic ar Scoil (Jack in School). This poem entails a mother whose son, Jeaic, is walking to the bus stop for his first day of school in junior infants (4-5 year olds). This poem supposedly signifies a mother’s love and a child growing up. While this is true, it’s all fine until you see what we’re studying in common level English.
In English we are learning and studying poems such as After The Titanic by Derek Mahon, a poem which details the degrading mental state of the manager of the White Star line, Bruce Ismay, after he got away from the sinking titanic and how he felt that he died that night with the sunken. This is a beautiful and complex poem MADE BY AN IRISH POET!!!
Ireland is known for our incredible poets and beautiful language! What I don’t understand is why poems as gaeilge do not have the same emotion and meaning as the poems in english! Could it be that the Department of Education is so desperate for Irish poetry that they will take any of the poetry as gaeilge that they can get!
PROBABLY!
THIS WILL BE THE SUBJECT FOR MY CBA2 IN ENGLISH THANK YOU.
rant over return to sane tumblr