#Poetry: Audrey Molloy

Finish: 28.03.2024
Title: The Blue Cocktail (49 poems)
Genre: poetry (75 pg)
Trivia: #ReadingIrelandMonth24 @ 746Books
Rating: C

 

Good news:
I read Audrey Molloy’s collection for #ReadingIrelandMonth24.
She was born in Wexford Ireland and later moved to the
area around Sydney Australia.
Quite a change of scenery and that is reflected in her poems.
I had to laugh when I read
“…the garden will face south, and my mother – sunworshipper-
will not believe that south can be a shady place.” (poem: English Bluebell, pg 40).

 

Bad news:
I read 49 poems and the first 16 were written about her Ireland youth and memories.
Most of the poems, in my opinion, lacked depth. That is probably because Molloy’s
important life experiences were yet to come in Australia.

 

Good news:
Her transplantation evokes poems of love, famly, children,
homesickness, new landscapes of beaches and the Blue mountains.
Her poems are becoming more reflective.
I cannot get it out of my head this morning!
An old Irish phrase reveals what poetry is:
…it is the music of what happens.
As soon as “life happens”….the poems begin to soar.

 

Personal:
Poetry is very personal and my “score” is based
on my own prefernces of what I like in poems.
I did not read enough alliteration, repetition or
images like flies circling in the center of the room!
4 poems were GOOD
17 poems were OKE
28 poems were…not what I was looking for.
Score: 42% enjoyment.

 

PS: Ms Molloy had something for mackerels!

1. Shoals of mackerel
2. Cabochons of mackerel
3. Mackerel picnic
4. Mackerel sky (…tell me, what color is that?)

 

Cover: It took me awhile but I finally saw it….a swimmer!