Poetry Day Ireland is an annual island-wide celebration of poetry which invites the nation to read, write, and share a poem on the day.
Presented by Poetry Ireland, the theme for this year is "Good Sports" celebrating the good sport in all of us, the drive to give it a go or to have a crack at it.
Read Mary Noonan's poem Racing Results below.
Racing Results
i.m. my father
A knot of men clusters under the town clock –
five past seven on a hot July evening.
Stragglers make their way, jocular salutes
chiming with the chorus of slagging, the lighting
of Woodbines, Sweet Afton.
.
Men with a purpose, many without a job,
putting off the day when they will board
the Rosslare train. They have their rituals,
their places: the football pitch, the snooker hall,
the handball alley. And here, nightly.
.
You are in their number, twenty years old, thin
and very brown from all your running and cycling
in the sun, shoelaces secured by tight knots
tied three times.
.
At 7.10, the Cork bus comes into view,
pulls up at Welch's the Hardware.
The driver greets a waiting boy, throws a bundle
bound with twine onto the footpath.
The late edition of the Evening Echo.
.
He carries his parcel carefully,
men ambling behind him in procession
to the paper shop. Outside again, they stand
stock-still, scouring the back pages–
will luck be a lady tonight?
A few shillings the richer or poorer
in a town with no telephones, no radios,
where the evening bus brings the late edition,
news of Sandown, Chepstow, Goodwood.
(From Stone Girl, Dedalus Press, 2019)
Find out more about Poetry Day Ireland here.
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