Paula Meehan Quotes

Buying Winkles - Suggests money was tight

My mother would spare me sixpence and say 'Hurry up now and don't be talking to strange men along the way.'

Buying Winkles - Children are more observant than adults

A bonus if the moon was in the strip of sky between the tall houses, or stars out, but even in the rain I was happy

Buying Winkles - Implicit of vices/addiction on vulnerable community & that good and evil exists

the smell of men together with drink and I'd see the light in golden mirrors. I envied each soul in the hot interior.

Buying Winkles - Light overhead, implicit of women as angelic

I'd ask her again to show me the right way to do it. She'd take a pin from her shawl - 'Open the eyelid. So. Stick it in till you feel a grip, then slither him out. Gently, mind.'

Buying Winkles - Last quote

I'd bear the newspaper twists bulging fat with winkles proudly home, like torches.

My Father Perceived as a vision of St. Francis - Setting, linking back to magical idea, silence

It was the piebald horse in next door's garden frightened me out of a dream with her dawn whinny.

My Father Perceived as a vision of St. Francis - Meehan sees her father

Autumn was nearly done, the first frost whitened the slates of the estate. He was older than I had reckoned

My Father Perceived as a vision of St. Francis - Contrasts and Celebration

They came then: birds of every size, shape, colour; they came from the hedges and shrubs, from eaves and garden sheds, from the industrial estate, outlying fields, from Dubber Cross they came and the ditches of the North Road.

My Father Perceived as a vision of St. Francis - Dawn to Chaos

The garden was a pandemonium when my father threw up his hands and tossed the crumbs to the air.

My Father Perceived as a vision of St. Francis - Father has the ability to transform

He was suddenly radiant, a perfect vision of St. Francis, made whole, made young again, in a Finglas garden.

The Exact Moment I Became a Poet - Exposition

Was in 1963 when Miss Shannon rapping the duster on the easel's peg half obscured by a cloud of chalk said 'Attend to your books girls, or mark my words, you'll end up in the sewing factory.'

The Exact Moment I Became a Poet - Crux

But that those words 'end up' robbed the labour of its dignity.

The Exact Moment I Became a Poet - Meehan realises the power of language

Not that I knew it then, not in those words - labour, dignity. That's all back construction, making sense;

The Exact Moment I Became a Poet - Extended Metaphor for poverty stricken society

But: I saw them: mothers, aunts and neighbours trussed like chickens on a conveyer belt

The Exact Moment I Became a Poet - Power of words and how they can strip you of your dignity

Words could pluck you, leave you naked, your lovely shiny feathers all gone.

Them Ducks Died for Ireland - Metaphor and personification

Time slides slowly down the sash window puddling in light on oaken boards.

Them Ducks Died for Ireland - Passage of time and how the green has seen generations pass

The Green is a great lung, exhaling like breath on the pane the seasons' turn, sunset and moonset, the ebb and flow of stars.

Them Ducks Died for Ireland - Link to 1916

And once made mirror to smoke and fire, a Republic's destiny in a Countess' stride, the bloodprice both summons antidote and pride.

Them Ducks Died for Ireland - Unsung Heroes (links to Hearth lesson)

When we've licked the wounds of history, wounds of war, we'll salute the stretcher-bearer, the nurse in white, the ones who pick up the pieces, who endure, who live at the edge, and die there

Them Ducks Died for Ireland - Everyday acts of bravery no longer saluted (Links to TEMIBaP)

Known by this archival footnote read by fading light; fragile as a breathmark on the windowpane or the gesture of commemorating heroes in bronze and stone.

Prayer for the Children of Longing - Setting with potential energy

Great tree from the far northern forest still rich with the sap of the forest, here at the heart of winter, here at the heart of the city

Prayer for the Children of Longing - Wisdom and understanding

Grant us the clarity of ice, the comfort of snow, the cool memory of trees, grant us the forest's silence, the snow's breathless quiet

Prayer for the Children of Longing - Still life, idiom and betrayal

For one moment to freeze, the scream, the siren, the knock on the door, the needle in its track, the knife in the back

Prayer for the Children of Longing - Emotional lines

The streets that couldn't shelter them; That led them astray, out of reach of our saving; The streets that we brought them home to

Prayer for the Children of Longing - Repetition signaling a journey of understanding

Under the starlight, under the moonlight, in the light of this tree, here at the heart of winter, here at the heart of the city.

Hearth Lesson - Metaphor, hiding fear and setting of the poem

I am crouched by the fire in the flat in Séan MacDermott Street while Zeus and Hera battle it out

Hearth Lesson - How a child feels and doesn't grasp the situation fully

I'm net, umpire, and court; most balls are lobbed over my head.

Hearth Lesson - Poverty is dehumanising

Even then I could tell it was money, the lack of it day after day, at the root of the bitter words

Hearth Lesson - Childlike imagination

The flames were blue and pink and green, a marvellous sight, an alchemical scene.

Hearth Lesson - Cutting metaphor for poverty and how it tears things apart

The flames sheered from cinder to chimney bread like trapped exotic birds