At Voices of Poetry on Sunday night Delia Brady read out her own poem, 'The Green Island', based on her family's connection to the Famine of the 1840s. It had impressed Mr Canning as an entry to the Senior Poetry Prize this year.
The Green Island
Just home
To the sheep that
graze,
the ruins of the cobbled
house-now used for shearing-
once held
Us
Before the land turned to ribs,
And with bleak November came
funerals-
no headstones, no plaques-
only the keening of the women,
heard from across the lake
How many infants-
Born with tired eyes and faces-
Thrown into the waters for
their heinous crime,
Unworthy in the graying priests' eyes,
of entering the kingdom of God
Their bones found, and left-
No names-
Never even given them-
Dead on Arrival
from starved mothers
in starving fields.
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