Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading content…
Transcript

Title:

This poem was written after the death of Ni Chuilleanain's sister in 1990. The poet remembers one day when her sister was ill but was still moving around in her dressing gown. She had looked at her and thought that there is a space that is going to be empty, and so it proved.

The poem is set and written in Italy. Her sister loved Italy and they bought a house there, but she became too ill to travel and never got to fully enjoy it. The episode of Ni Chuilleanain's son feeling sick in the car happened a couple of years after her sister's death. It reminded her of time passing and of empty spaces left behind.

to Niall Woods and Xenya Ostrovskaia, married in Dublin on 9 September 2009

'I write poems that mean a lot to me' ENC

Niall Woods is Ní Chuilleanáin’s son and Xenya Ostrovskaia was the woman he married in September 2009. Ní Chuilleanáin wrote the poem to commemorate their wedding and give her blessing to their marriage.

In the poem she references many different folk tales both Irish and Russian and also the Book of Ruth from the Bible. These stories all deal with people starting out on adventurous journeys and, to varying degrees, feature ‘happily ever after’ endings. The poet’s message is that one has to take risks and persevere to earn the good things in life, especially love.

Title:

A ‘Killer instinct’ is ‘a ruthless determination to succeed or win’. Both the hare and the poet’s father exhibit this instinct as they escape their hunters whereas the dogs and soldiers, who let their prey go, do not. The poet too, in fleeing her father’s deathbed, seemed to lack the courage to endure her own fear at such a moment.

Stanza by Stanza:

The poem opens with the image of a hare ‘sitting still’ in the middle of the path on which the poet was walking, a memory from a few years previously. She had ‘fled’ the hospital in which her father was dying obviously struggling with the ordeal of seeing him waste away.

She was reminded of this memory by a striking photograph of hare coursing in the morning newspaper:

Two greyhounds tumbling over, absurdly gross,

While the hare shoots off to the left, her bright eye

Full not only of speed and fear

But surely in the moment a glad power,

She sees fear in the eye of the hare but also the thrill of survival, ‘glad power’ in her ability to outrun the ‘stupid dogs’. This sparks the memory of her nineteen year old father being chased by the Black and Tans during the War of Independence in 1921 and how, like the hare, he gave them the slip:

And he was clever, he saw a house

And risked an open kitchen door

“A poem communicates without being understood.” - T.S. Eliot

'Street'

Imagery

The poem consists of a series of dynamic images creating a cinematic effect. The reader follows the action of the girl on her walk being watched and is left to think about these ambiguous images afterwards.

The poet uses contrasting colour to powerful effect with the image of dark red blood beside the pristine white of the butcher’s trousers:

When he saw her passing by in her white trousers

Dangling a knife on a ring at her belt,

He stared at the dark shining drops on the paving-stones.

1. The poem tells a story. In a short paragraph, outline what happens.

2. The poem has a rich cinematic quality. In your opinion, how is the atmosphere of the poem created?

3. Why do you think she chose to name the poem 'Street' and yet gives the street no name? Give reasons for your response.

4. Were you satisfied by the poem's conclusion? Briefly explain your response.

Stanza by Stanza:

A woman, who engages in the work of a butcher, traditionally seen as a masculine activity, makes for an intriguing central character in this poem. The man who watches her seems fascinated with the knife on her belt and the ‘dark shining drops’ of blood, which drip onto the ground from it.

One day he follows her down a lane at the back of a slaughterhouse. He sees the spotless stairs ‘brushed and clean’ and her shoes placed neatly on the bottom step. Then he notices the marks her bare feet have made on the stairs as they ascended: ‘the red crescent/ Her bare heels left, fading to faintest at the top.’ Her world is secret, unknown and unfamiliar and this may be what draws him to her.

For the reader the story ends here and we are left wondering as to what happened next if anything. It seems to be deliberately ambiguous.

About the incident he commented ‘never/Such gladness’ as ‘he came out/ Into a blissful dawn’ the following morning. Both the hare and her father felt excitement and joy in surviving a near death experience.

The poet thinks that neither should ever ‘have been coursed’ as it should not have been necessary for a boy to fight for his country’s independence at such a young age and hare coursing is now regarded as a barbaric activity. She concludes the poem by admitting she ‘should not have run away’ from her father’s deathbed and remembers that she subsequently ‘went back to the city’ to face up to her own challenges.

STREET

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

On Lacking the Killer Instinct

This poem demonstrates the process of memory very clearly. One thought calls forth a memory and then sparks off another and another. The dramatic photo of a hare being chased by greyhounds in the newspaper reminds the poet of an encounter with a hare on the road near the hospital where her father was dying.

She then thinks of her father as a young man, running from the enemy in the Irish War of Independence and his ‘clever’/crazy idea to chance an ‘open kitchen door’, a risk that saved his life.

In Brief:

Street is a short poem about love and attraction designed to leave the reader guessing. A man falls ‘in love with the butcher’s daughter’ as he sees her walk down the street and on one occasion he follows her home.

TRANSLATION

for the reburial of the Magdalenes

Ms Humphreys

Women (around 30,000) who were admitted to the Magdalene institutions over a period of 150 years were known as the Magdalenes. They were incarcerated for a number of reasons including growing up in care, stealing, getting pregnant or even being considered too promiscuous. In 1999 an order of nuns sold part of their convent to a developer. When works commenced, the remains of 155 women were discovered. A huge public scandal followed which continues to this day. The bodies were exhumed and buried in Glasnevin. This poem was read at that service.

Translation

1. Describe in 5/10 lines what you think the poem is about.

2. Do you agree that there is a real sense of unrest among the souls in the grave? Explain your answer.

3. Is the score ever settled in the poem? Explain your thinking

4. Steam is a recurring motif in the poem. Explain when and why the poet uses it.

Literary Review

The Book of Ruth:

The final story she references is the Book of Ruth from the Bible. Ruth was a Moabite who travelled far away from home to marry an Israelite. After her husband died Ruth remained loyal to her mother-in-law Naomi saying ‘whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’ She eventually married again largely as a result of her loyalty to Naomi and lived happily ever after.

All of these references encourage courage in the face of being far away from home. Niall and Xenya’s marriage is seen as the start of a great adventure and she tells them not to be afraid to ‘leave behind the places’ that they know. The stories from their respective cultures will keep them connected to home: ‘All that you leave behind you will find once more.’

Deaths and Engines

Folk Tales....

Stanza by Stanza:

Key features:

The poem opens with a direct address to the couple about to be wed. She says that when they ‘both see the same star/ Pitching its tent on the point of the steeple’ it will be time for their journey together to begin.

The folk tale references

•The Red Ettin – a tale about three sons setting out on journeys – each one is given the choice to take a full loaf and their mother’s curse or half a loaf and their mother’s blessing. Only the youngest son makes the latter choice and he succeeds in marrying a beautiful princess.

•Sleeping Beauty – the familiar folktale of a cursed princess rescued by a courageous prince.

•The Firebird – a Russian folktale about an emperor whose golden apples are being stolen at night-time. The emperor commands his sons to find out who the thief is and only the youngest son succeeds. He sets out on a journey to catch the culprit, the firebird, and eventually succeeds and marries a beautiful princess.

•The King of Ireland’s Son and the Enchanter’s Daughter – the story of a prince who loses a wager to an enchanter and has to complete the tasks set by him. Eventually he succeeds and marries the enchanter’s daughter!

Piled high, wrapped lightly, like the one cumulus cloud

in a perfect sky, softly packed like the air,

Is all that went on in those years, the absences,

The faces never long absent from thought,

The bodies alive then and the airy space they took up

When we saw them wrapped and sealed by sickness

Guessing the piled weight of sleep

We knew they could not carry for long;

This is the place of their presence; in the tree, in the air.

  • Deceptively simple style.
  • Preoccupation with transitions e.g. from past to present or from physical to spiritual.
  • Interest in history / architeture.
  • References to myth, legend and folk tales.
  • Themes of life / death
  • Vivid sensual imagery.

This is the place where the child

Felt sick in the car and they pulled over

And waited in the shadow of a house.

A tall tree like a cat's tail waited too.

They opened the windows and breathed

Easily, while nothing moved. Then he was better.

Over twelve years it has become the place

Where you were sick one day on the way to the lake.

You are taller now than us.

The tree is taller, the house is quite covered in

With green creeper, and the bend

in the road is as silent as ever it was on that day.

Deaths and Engines

Influences & her work

To the poet this bend in the road is a place of memory for all these people and all her memories, not just the one in which her child got sick: ‘This is the place of their presence: in the tree, in the air.’

Eilean's mother was a children's author and this may help to account for the abundance of folklore in her writings. Religious themes also dominate her work.

'Ni Chuilleanain does many expert things in her poems but does them so quietly that often she remains unheard except by those who have returned many times to listen.'

The Bend in the Road

FOLLOWING

Accomplishments

This poem was written after the poet attended a prize-giving ceremony in the RDS. She was following a friend, searching for the material of his suit and this reminded her of following her late father, who always wore a suit and hat. When she got home, she looked at a print she had of Jack Yeats's 'A Fair Day.'. Both of these events inspired this poem. She seems to be trying to recapture memories of her late father.

The Bend in the Road is a poem about memory and nostalgia for the past. It recounts a tale of a child getting sick on a journey with the whole family and how the location, that ‘bend in the road’, becomes synonymous with that event.

The poet realizes that our surroundings are filled with the memories of our loved ones even if they have passed away.

Birth and early life of Eiléan

She did her undergraduate degree in UCC and a Master of Arts in 1964. She attended Oxford and received a Bachelor of Letters in Elizabethan prose, concentrating on religious writing. She lectures in Trinity College.

She is the co-founder of a literary magazine known as "Cyphers."

She has won many poetry prizes for her works including the Lawrence O' Shannessy prize for poetry and the Griffin prize for her poetry collection titled "The Sun Fish". That same collection gained her a nomination for the T.S Elliot award as well.

She is a talented translator and is able to translate Irish, Italian, French and Romanian. She has also published several books about translation.

'The Bend in the Road'

Language

1. In the first stanza the poet describes a place where 'the child' felt ill and 'they' stopped the car until 'he' recovered. Give a possible reason for the poet's decision to use the third-person narrative here.

2. Based on your reading of the poem, comment on the appropriateness of the title.

3. Choose one image from the poem that you consider effective. Give reasons why this image appealed to you.

4. How would you describe the poem's conclusion? Is it mysterious? Hopeful? Comforting? Bitter? Briefly explain your response.

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin was born in Cork in 1942. Her mother was an author of children's books and her father was a professor of Irish literature in University College Cork. Her mother ran the nursery in UCC so she spent a lot of time there and this appears to have been a factor in her having an appreciation for architecture, which she uses in many of her poems.

Because of the literature heavy environment she grew up in, she gained a passion for the literary world, especially poetry

Figurative language: The poet uses similes in many of her images.

She describes the tree as ‘like a cat’s tail’ and the spirits of the dead

being ‘like one cumulus cloud/ In a perfect sky.’

Atmosphere: There is a serene and peaceful atmosphere in this poem.

This ‘bend in the road’ is described as ‘silent’ and seems a place

where little happens.

Alliteration: ‘A tall tree, like a cat’s tail’. And ‘sealed by sickness’.

Assonance: ‘Piled high, wrapped lightly, like…’

Facts.

1. Her family was bilingual

2. She grew up in a very republican household.

3. Her father fought in the War of Independence and was captured during the Civil War.

5. Her Great Uncle Joseph Mary Plunkett was one of the seven sigantories of the Proclamation.

6. These events instilled her with a great sense of national pride. She describes herself as a 'Gaelic-speaking female papist whose direct and indirect ancestors, men and women, on both sides, were committed to detaching Ireland from the British Empire'.

7. Her three favorite aunts were nuns.

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi