A first ford edition
At the Ford
Modern Irish Poems from the Ulster & Fenian Cycles
Bronze under fluorescent light. Myth at the bus stop. The old Irish stories standing inside the present tense.
Irish mythology, but it knows what a group chat is.
At the Ford gathers fourteen modern poems drawn from the Ulster Cycle and the Fenian Cycle — Cú Chulainn, Fionn, Macha, Emer, Oisín, Scáthach, the Morrígan — retold for a country of DART carriages, Centra tills, hospital corridors, wet car parks and phones that eat whole afternoons.
This is a slim book about standing your ground. About being useless in the Rotunda corridor. About the phone as Tír na nÓg. About the old stories still walking home in the rain.
Sample poem
Oisín and the Phone
Oisín went with Niamh to Tír na nÓg
and stayed three hundred years thinking it was three.
The phone is Tír na nÓg.
You go in for three minutes and come out
three hundred years older,
and the people in the kitchen have eaten without you,
and the light has changed, and your tea is cold,
and the dog has given up and gone to lie down,
Get off the horse. Stand in the wet field.
Be old, be here, be a man with a foot on the ground.
Fourteen poems at the crossing
- The Boy at Culann’s Gate
- Fionn’s Thumb in Centra
- The Nine Soft Spears
- Emer on the DART
- The Ford at Tallaght
- Oisín and the Phone
- Tied to the Stone
- Macha at the Rotunda
- The Warp-Spasm in the Outside Lane
- Scáthach on the Sideline
- The Washerwoman at the Ford
- The Boy at the Shore
- The Group Chat Called Family
- Cathbad’s Forecast
Preorder
The first proof is in production.
Paperback preorders will open after the proof copy is approved. Digital edition and paperback fulfilment are being prepared now.
At the Ford
Paperback · 5×8 · matte cover · cream paper
Target price: €14–16 + shipping
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