Poetry Day Ireland is an annual island-wide celebration of poetry which invites the nation to read, write, and share a poem on the day.
Presented by Poetry Ireland, the theme for this year is "Good Sports" celebrating the good sport in all of us, the drive to give it a go or to have a crack at it.
Read Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe's poem Flesh being wild below.
Flesh being wild
after Red Rum
.
It would be years before she'd reveal her greatest act of persuasion was to get me to believe it was sand that turned into glass
Even the ocean, she’d recall, picking out a seam of ribbon, you’d believe for its sheen that its surface could run sheer but not the grains
She kept me, for my own good, from the company of men: the milliner, the millionaire, the second-hand car salesman, eyes on them all
Except the blacksmith, shadowed by the side of the forge, what he knew stayed hidden, alone, until it became mine—the way we burned
Those omegas on their heels, white heat rising fast up our faces, the sinews of our arms, a headstrong animal quieted by his hands
Then the horse stood upon the pedal while we lay there silent in the smithy a black pool flooded with light and I gave myself
With abandon to the fluid blue eyes he looked through made me whole: maybe we are all healed by the water in which we are born
Take me to the races, mama, I want to see once more that gaze from under feathered hats, greedy-eyed jewels glinting in the sun
(From Cyphers 96, 2023)
Note: Red Rum was an Irish champion Thoroughbred steeplechaser bred at Rossenarra stud in Kells, Ireland. After being passed from one training yard to another, he was finally bought by Ginger McCain, a car dealer from Southport, England. The gelding was lame when he arrived due to pedal osteitis, an inflammation of the hoof bone. McCain’s training included galloping him on Southport beach, where the sand and sea was said to have greatly alleviated the horse’s symptoms.
Red Rum went on to win the Grand National an unprecedented three times, achieving an unmatched historic treble. He became a national celebrity, making guest appearances such as at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Awards, and even switching on the Blackpool Illuminations in 1977. He is buried at the winning post of the Aintree Racecourse, a poem engraved as his epitaph.
Find out more about Poetry Day Ireland here.
