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Best of Irish Poetry 2010
Editor: Matthew Sweeney

Songs of Earth and Light
Barbara Korun poems translated by Theo Dorgan

Done Dating DJs
by Jennifer Minniti-Shippey
Winner, 2008 Fool for Poetry Competition

Richesses: Francophone Songwriter Poets
Edited and translated by Aidan Hayes

Munster Literature Centre

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K.V. SKENE

K.V. Skene is a long-term ex pat Canadian who currently resides in Oxford, England. Her work has appeared in Canadian, U.K., U.S., Irish, Australian and Austrian magazines. Publications include Only a Dragon and Calendar of Rain, winners of the 2002 and 2004 Shaunt Basmajian Chapbook Award (Canada); Edith, a series of poems on Nurse Edith Cavell, courtesy of Flarestack Publishing (UK) and her latest book, Love in the (Irrational) Imperfection, published by Hidden Brook Press (Canada).

No Matter Where We Come From

frost is the first betrayal, let it be
summer always, where beauty is,
where children are on holiday

under sun and sweet rain
as the breeze blows state secrets
into adolescent ears – the aphrodisiac effect

of danger, of soft fruits untasted
as reason falls full circle – half ripe or rotten,
the stench of autumn,

the suicide of a spent earth, barely breathable
sky spinning into October trees, wildflowers,
houses, cathedrals, stars…

Before I met you I lived in a city
of two solitudes, two languages,
the moment I spoke I labeled myself:

my god, family, church, school, playground
friends, politics, history… Je me souviens
and the stale seeds of an old war

still tongue-tie the boys and girls in Parc la Fontaine
looking after each other, the dog at bay, the day
dissolving. This is where I come from –

not by choice. How little we know
of ghosts in the oncoming, the gnat
in our eyelashes, the blind face of our child

as we strive to believe the unbelievable
will deliver us from evil
(or our achluophobia) one sunrise at a time.


achluophobia – fear of the dark

©2009 K.V. Skene

Author Links

An interview with K.V. Skene

Love in the (Irrational) Imperfection at Hidden Brook Press

'No Rules', a poem by K.V. Skene at Carte Blanche

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