This book tells a story that nobody knows because at the time the
story happened, nobody cared. The individual lives of the labouring
Irish were unrecorded, irrelevant. The Hungry Grass weaves the
threads of daily routine, annual cycles, religious faith, fairy
belief, communal practice, and political reality to show as clear a
picture as possible of the very complex life among tenant families
in the nineteenth-century. The poet begins with the little she
knows of her Murphy ancestors: the names and birthdates of the six
who survived to emigrate, and the name of the parish where they
lived. I also knew from my triple-great-grandfather's obituary that
two children did not survive. This volume is one continuous poem
that unfolds over the course of fifteen years. It never falters in
evoking its theme, or in being focused and concise, with impeccable
word choices, and unfailing, echoing rhythm. When employed, the
rhyming is subtle and musical. The shape of thought, which is a
consistent seven-syllable line with occasional variation of one or
two syllables, is masterful in its execution of sound and sense.
This is poetry that will show anyone who doubts it the continuing
and necessary love of this craft, this art.
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