• International
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Books
  • Television
  • Contact
No Result
View All Result
CN News Today: Latest News Online
Copyright
Privacy Policy
  • International
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Books
  • Television
  • Contact
No Result
View All Result
CN News Today: Latest News Online
No Result
View All Result
Home Books
One Irish Poet Looks Back Three Centuries to Find Obsession and Inspiration in Another

One Irish Poet Looks Back Three Centuries to Find Obsession and Inspiration in Another

CN News Today: Latest News Online by CN News Today: Latest News Online
May 25, 2021
in Books
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0

A woman once fell in love with a poem — a keening, a roaring — for a slain beloved. The 18th-century Irish noblewoman Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill composed “Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire” after her husband was murdered by a powerful British official. Arriving at the scene, Ni Chonaill, pregnant with their third child, drank handfuls of her husband’s blood. “My bright dove,” “my pleasure,” she called him in the poem, “my thousand bewilderments” — why hadn’t she been with him? She imagined her blouse catching the bullet in its pleats.

For decades, “Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire” survived in the oral tradition. It is now recognized as one of the great poems of its age. The poet Doireann Ni Ghriofa was also pregnant with her third child when she fell under its thrall, keeping a “scruffy photocopy” under her pillow. Where are Ni Chonaill’s finger bones buried? she wondered; where can one leave flowers? The grave lies unmarked. Ni Chonaill’s letters and diaries have all vanished. Her own son omitted her name from family records.

The ardent, shape-shifting “A Ghost in the Throat” is Ni Ghriofa’s offering. It includes her translation of “Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire,” along with a hybrid of essay, biography, autofiction, scholarship — and a daily accounting of life with four children under the age of 6.

“This is a female text,” Ni Ghriofa begins the book. “This is a female text, composed while folding someone else’s clothes. My mind holds it close, and it grows, tender and slow, while my hands perform innumerable chores. This is a female text borne of guilt and desire, stitched to a soundtrack of cartoon nursery rhymes.”

The book is all undergrowth, exuberant, tangled passage. It recalls Nathalie Léger’s brilliant and original “Suite for Barbara Loden”: a biography of the actress and director that becomes a tally of the obstacles in writing such a book, and an admission of the near-impossibility of biography itself. “To study a female life marked by silence is to attempt a cartography of fog,” Ni Ghriofa has written.

Doireann Ni Ghriofa, the author of “A Ghost in the Throat.”Credit…Bríd O’Donovan

Ni Ghriofa is self-conscious — an amateur, she apologizes repeatedly. She has no academic credentials, only her obsession — which is less with the actual woman, one feels, than with the poem’s copiousness, its mingling of grief, desire, revenge. She is wary in libraries, a baby strapped to her chest, a toddler by her side. She writes the book we are reading in the free car park while the baby sleeps, in a stolen hour before dinner.

So daunting at first, this work — the re-creation of a life, the translation of the poem — begins to feel familiar. “In Italian, the word stanza means ‘room,’” she notes. “I reassure myself that I am simply homemaking, and this thought steadies me, because tending to a room is a form of labor I know that I can attempt as well as anyone.” She pieces together Ni Chonaill’s life as if she is darning a hem, keeping the story from unraveling further. She interrupts herself to stuff a child into a car seat, wrestle a duvet into its cover, pick pieces of pasta off the floor.

Ni Ghriofa is the author of several books of poetry, which she has translated herself, from the Irish. “A Ghost in the Throat” is her first book in prose. It has been read rapturously, but not always carefully. I’ve seen reviews that are grateful for how the writer evokes the tedium of domestic life and the “depredations” of pregnancy on the body.

Except that’s not what Ni Ghriofa describes, not at all; not she who is a bit abashed at how much she “loves her drudge-work,” she who stares at her body in the mirror — “my breasts, lopsided and glorious; the holy door of my quadruple cesarean scar, my sag-stomach, stretch-marked with ripples like a strand at low tide” — and feels “no revulsion, only pride. This is a female text, I think. My body replies in its dialect of scars. Ta-dah! it seems to say, Ta-dah!”

The story that uncoils is stranger, more difficult to tell, than those valiant accounts of rescuing a “forgotten” woman writer from history’s erasures or of the challenges faced by the woman artist. Ni Ghriofa, who spent 10 years pregnant or breastfeeding, who almost lost her fourth child (there is a harrowing chapter set in the NICU) is immediately ready for another. Without a baby to occupy her, she wakes up shaking — “What will become of me, in the absence of this labor, all this growing and harvesting?” She cannot quit that “exquisite” pleasure of service, the purpose and physical pleasure in caring, feeding, holding a small baby. Her husband pleads with her, asks if he can get a vasectomy (she thanks him for going through with it in the acknowledgments — a first in my reading experience).

What is this ecstasy of self-abnegation, what are its costs? She documents this tendency without shame or fear but with curiosity, even amusement. She will retrain her hungers. “I could donate my days to finding hers,” she tells herself, embarking on Ni Chonaill’s story. “I could do that, and I will.” Or so she says. The real woman Ni Ghriofa summons forth is herself.

Previous Post

Expectations for Bryce Young: What the Alabama QB should strive to accomplish in 2021 college football season

Next Post

Kentaro Miura, Creator of Epic Manga ‘Berserk,’ Dies at 54

Related Posts

Salman Rushdie is attacked onstage in Western New York.
Books

Salman Rushdie is attacked onstage in Western New York.

by CN News Today: Latest News Online
August 13, 2022
0

The author was set to deliver a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution when an assailant rushed at him.

Read more
Roaring Through Paris With ‘Kiki Man Ray’

Roaring Through Paris With ‘Kiki Man Ray’

August 13, 2022
Peter Beagle, Author of ‘The Last Unicorn,’ Is Back In Control

Peter Beagle, Author of ‘The Last Unicorn,’ Is Back In Control

August 12, 2022
Three Riveting New Psychological Thrillers

Three Riveting New Psychological Thrillers

August 11, 2022

Recent News

TMC Believed in Those Who Betrayed Party, Says Saugata Roy on Losing Face in Bengal Over Scams | Exclusive

TMC Believed in Those Who Betrayed Party, Says Saugata Roy on Losing Face in Bengal Over Scams | Exclusive

August 14, 2022
Ukrainians troll Russian tourists fleeing Crimea after explosions hit nearby airbase

Ukrainians troll Russian tourists fleeing Crimea after explosions hit nearby airbase

August 14, 2022
TMC Believed in Those Who Betrayed Party, Says Saugata Roy on Losing Face in Bengal Over Scams | Exclusive

TMC Believed in Those Who Betrayed Party, Says Saugata Roy on Losing Face in Bengal Over Scams | Exclusive

August 14, 2022
11 Opposition Parties Resolve to Fight Against ‘Misuse’ of EVMs, Money Power and Media

11 Opposition Parties Resolve to Fight Against ‘Misuse’ of EVMs, Money Power and Media

August 13, 2022
TMC Believed in Those Who Betrayed Party, Says Saugata Roy on Losing Face in Bengal Over Scams | Exclusive

TMC Believed in Those Who Betrayed Party, Says Saugata Roy on Losing Face in Bengal Over Scams | Exclusive

August 14, 2022
Ukrainians troll Russian tourists fleeing Crimea after explosions hit nearby airbase

Ukrainians troll Russian tourists fleeing Crimea after explosions hit nearby airbase

August 14, 2022
Beautiful during sunrise with illuminated buildings on the River Thames at Tower Bridge and Financial district in City of London, England.
CN News Today: Latest News Online

CN News Today: Latest News Online
View the latest news and breaking news today for U.S., world, weather, entertainment, politics and health at News Today

No Result
View All Result
  • International
  • Politics
  • Sports
  • Books
  • Television
  • Contact

© 2022 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Do not sell my personal information.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT