Ilsa Thielan’s poetry, like her renowned photographs, embraces a variety of landscapes.  She is well known for her photographs of the flora and fauna of the Burren in Co. Clare, Ireland.  Her poems have a lyric intensity and beauty that capture the presence of this unique landscape.  As well as her careful appreciation and commitment to her Burren home, Ilsa Thielan is an adventurous traveller. For many years she has spent time on her own in the wilderness of Northern Canada and explored the landscapes of New Mexico, North Africa and Spain. Her photography and poetry exhibitions include a homage to the people she met at the Festival au Desert, sixty-five kilometres beyond Timbuktu, in the vastness of the Sahara. She attended the legendary Festival of Saint Sara, also known as the Festival of the Gypsies, in Saintes Maries de la Mer, Carmargue in the south of France, an area famous for its beautiful white horses.  As indicated by the title of this collection, horses appear often in Ilsa Thielan’s poetry; a freedom both real and meta-phorical. In this, her first poetry collection, she shows her love for the wild places, for people who live closely with nature and the animals who aid and inspire them. 

Ilsa Thielan began writing when she was seven years old and writes ever since. After studying literature and arts in Germany she made her home in Ireland. She joined the North Clare Writers Workshop and her poems and stories appeared in their annual anthology. Her work was published in Stet, in “Women’s Work”, The Burren Meithal, Revival, with the North Clare Three Legged Stool Poets and in Dogs Singing: A Tribute Anthology (Salmon, 2010). She read at Cúirt, the Ennis Bookclub Festival, Glór Music Centre and in the Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon. Her poetry and stories are borne out of her experience and observations in life, the natural environment of her Burren home, her travels, her relationship with people she meets, her love for animals and time she spent in the Sahara, in the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico and in the wilderness of Northern Canada. She is also a visual artist working with photography and tapestry.

Like a landmark

you stood

on the cliff’s edge

in Ballyreen

wild dog

you won my heart

with your gaze

wild dog of Ballyreen

I followed you

to your den

I saw you starving

I fed you

I heard you crying

when they had killed your pups

I cried with you

and we walked together

you

in safe distance beside me

and you never let me

touch you

I caught you 

and took you home

wild bitch of Ballyreen

when they came

to shoot you