BLUE

E. A. Fredericks

@efredericks.bsky.social

West Coaster in exile, teaching literature to college kids in the Midwest. I read books; occasionally I remember to watch films; sometimes I bake things. I miss sunshine. Former #toastie and all that.

148 followers78 following1.3k posts

EAefredericks.bsky.socialOct 5, 2024 1:11pm

First finished this month, Connie Roberts's collection Little Witness. It's a tough read: Roberts was removed from an abusive home at age 5 & placed in an Irish industrial school where she spent most of her childhood. Many of the poems are about that. The epigraphs & preface frame all. 💙📚

A small grey dog curled up in a black and white blanket, a thin paperback with a green cover propped next to her.

Facing pages from the beginning of a book. On the left, an epigraphs reading "Keep digging for the good turf" Seamus Heaney to the author, New York City, 1998

On the right, a preface:
From what I can gather, I was first admitted to Mount Carmel Industrial School, County Westmeath in 1968, at the age of five. In 1971, a younger brother and I were returned to our parents' home in County Offaly. Ten months later, we were transferred back to the orphanage, where I remained until I was seventeen. All of my fourteen siblings spent their childhoods in Irish industrial schools.

The names of certain people mentioned in this collection have been changed for the protection of the individuals concerned.

EAefredericks.bsky.socialOct 5, 2024 1:16pm

As those opening pages suggest, this is a book in constant conversation with a poetic tradition that Heaney represents & also the social failures of the Irish state, & how the poet navigates her relation to both. It's not mere misery lit, though Roberts doesn't whitewash the suffering. 💙📚

OMPHALOS

No Mossbawn or Inniskeen to take down from a shelf and leaf through. No banks of earth embroidered with ferns and bluebells, no rabbits running through the thicket, nor wrens sheltering in the boxwood hedge.

My omphalos is a pigeon-grey orphanage yard clotted with kids: see-saws, pissy knickers, a clay-filled Kiwi tin on a hopscotch square, British Bulldog, freckled faces, conkers on shoelaces, pig-tailed girls twirling twine skipping ropes by St Martha's kitchen, Jack stones, scabby knees, chinny-alley marbles, and alongside the cloister, two-seater barn-red swings we ride like horses till Miss Carberry's Supper! Supper!

Galloping from the scullery to the laundry my brother riding piggyback - I trip. Like dripping solder, globules of blood fall from my nose to the concrete turf. My baptism? A call to bear witness, brazen.

THE BREAD BIN WAS EMPTY

I

The bread bin was empty, the money gone. What was she supposed to do to feed her babies? Beg? Not likely. The bread bin was empty, the money gone on Guinness for himself, free rounds for the lads. Of course he knew the bread bin was empty, the money gone, but what was he supposed to do?

II

The Lord helps those who help themselves. My mother took Him at His word. We stole into the church like elves. The Lord helps those who help themselves, so into the poor-box we delved and robbed its contents unperturbed. The Lord helps those who help themselves, and mother took Him at His word.

HOLY ANGELS

Where the babies slept: mottled white steel cots

lined up like infantries.

Soiled nappies steeping

in green and red buckets. A young girl bottle-feeds a baby;

puts it down for the night. Next day, whispers to her friend

in school how it never woke up.

E. A. Fredericks

@efredericks.bsky.social

148 followers78 following1.3k posts