This is Poetry Moment on WPSU, a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
Welcome to Poetry Moment. I’m Marjorie Maddox.
Whether you’re part Irish or just a fan of the day, you may find yourself raising a pint tomorrow to the Emerald Isle. In “Dublin,” Sean Thomas Dougherty goes beyond state-side acknowledgments. Transporting us to Ireland, he questions definitions of “home” and “identity.”
Sean Thomas Dougherty’s most recent books are "Death Prefers the Minor Keys" from BOA Editions, and "The Dead are Everywhere Telling Us Things," winner of the 2021 Jacar Press Full Length Poetry Prize. His book, "The Second O of Sorrow" won the Housatonic Book Award and was co-winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. He lives and work in Erie, PA.
What does it take to belong to, as well as in, a country? Sean Thomas Dougherty explains, “[The difference / Between longing & belonging / Is one of keening, / Calling us home.” Through haunting imagery and repetition, Sean examines his parents’—and, in turn, his own—bond to Ireland.
Here’s “Dublin” by Sean Thomas Dougherty
Dublin
In Dublin I lost track of my nation
But not my father.
He was standing on O’Connell street
As I boarded a bus
My father’s brown face
Became another
Voice of this city
Left in the rear view
Of History—the bars
Of Behan & the alleyways
Of northside boys
With their exuberant slang.
My father's temperament sweet & bitter
As Irish history, hard as Irish bread;
The Estate mothers gathered
At the corner to share
Gossip, to complain & curse so loud
Even the clouds floating over the Gaol
Muffled their ears.
In Dublin I lost track
Of my nation but not my father,
Walking along the river Liffey. The urn
Inside spilled its dust. My mother a levee
Against the sea of grief. The Irish sea
An unnamable yearning to belong
As we strolled past black suited bankers
& buskers, BUSkers kids nodding
On junk in doorways. The streets
Torn apart like dictionaries
As foreign construction workers
Worked on tram tracks,
Shared cigarettes, leaned on shovels
Speaking loud Spanish
& Polish, outside a bakery
Of Italian loaves. My American mother,
A levee against the Irish sea.
& for me too the difference
Between longing & belonging
Is one of keening,
Calling us home.
But what is home,
Or even a nation mean?
Without a parade
Seemingly unimportant
To history as the rain
The small rain, along the quay key
That wetted my father’s hair.
As my mother, head scarfed
Against the Irish wind,
Leaned her shoulder into him.
“Dublin” was previously published in a different form in Juked.
That was “Dublin” by Sean Thomas Dougherty. Thanks for listening.
Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox, Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You'll find more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
