by Orna Ross | Feb 1, 2014 | Poetry |
My mother's name is Brigid, though everyone knows her as Ida, named as almost every Irish person used to be, after a saint. St Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland, whose feast day is today, the old Irish imbolc the first day of spring. Much to my own surprise...
by Orna Ross | Jan 27, 2014 | The Rest |
Knowing that the same elemental, dangerous energy that moves the wind also moves me, the only approach to life that makes sense to me is the creative way. And knowing that I am an advocate for this way, people often ask me: if I did ‘go creative', what would...
by Orna Ross | Jan 13, 2014 | The Rest |
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life… I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't...
by Orna Ross | Jan 6, 2014 | Poetry |
I have thoughts but I am not my thoughts. I am one who sees them swirl. What can be seen is not the seer. I have thoughts but my thoughts are not me. I have a body but I am not my body. I am one who makes it move. What can be moved is not the mover. I have a body but...
by Orna Ross | Dec 29, 2013 | The Rest |
This is a section from the most remarkable Christmas poem ever written, “For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio”, by WH Auden. Composed in 1942, the darkest days from the British Allies perspective of World War II, the poem is 1500 lines long (more than...
by Orna Ross | Dec 22, 2013 | Poetry |
It is a poem born out of loneliness and solitude. Kavanagh wrote it after spending another festive season alone in his bachelor flat in Dublin and the poem is infused with nostalgia for rural, farm-family life, recalled through the lens of Christmas. The memories...
by Orna Ross | Dec 15, 2013 | The Rest |
The social order is also the topic of the next poem but here gender is the dispossessor. Jesus, like every other human who ever lived was, in the words of the great Adrienne Rich, “of woman born” and Rich's “Translations” speaks of the politics...
by Orna Ross | Dec 13, 2013 | The Rest |
Last Week: Go Creative With… Patti Smith Ten Thoughts on creating from Pamela Travers, author of Mary Poppins. The Unknown — our beautiful Anglo-Saxon word, intimate, reverberant, profound, not so much to be understood as stood under while it rains upon us —...