This week's Poem Of The Week, presented in association with Poetry Ireland, is Windharp by the late, great John Montague, which forms part of the text of The Wild Dog Rose, an album Montague recorded in 2011 with Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains, setting his poems to Moloney's music.
As John’s 90th birthday approaches, Paddy Moloney and Tríona Marshall of The Chieftains will join forces with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon to celebrate Montague’s remarkable life with a celebratory performance of The Wild Dog Rose at the National Concert Hall on Friday, December 7th - details here - and on Saturday, December 8th at Triskel Arts Centre, Cork - details here.
Windharp
for Patrick Collins
The sounds of Ireland,
that restless whispering
you never get away
from, seeping out of
low bushes and grass,
heatherbells and fern,
wrinkling bog pools,
scraping tree branches,
light hunting cloud,
sound hounding sight,
a hand ceaselessly
combing and stroking
the landscape, till
the valley gleams
like the pile upon
a mountain pony’s coat.
Taken from New Collected Poems, by John Montague (2012). Reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of John Montague and The Gallery Press.
