where the lost things go traces the experience of losing oneself through life’s most formative journeys. Fly back and forth through four decades in narratives bridging the west of Ireland and Australia – buffeted by grief, betrayal and dislocation; gliding on hope and love.

Feel the weight of emptiness in the emigrant’s baggage; the displacement of the Nowhere people who leave but perhaps never fully arrive; the loss at returning ‘home’ to find the essence of what that means – people, places and credos – has slipped away in your absence. 

This collection is about letting go of your concept of ‘home’, moving through loss, embracing hope, and finding yourself somewhere in between. 

Are we, after all, mostly the sum of what we gain from all our losses?

Anne Casey’s poems have been published in The Irish Times, The Murmur Journal, The Incubator, Other Terrain, Backstory, Into the Void Magazine, ROPES Literary Journal, The Remembered Arts Journal, Dodging the Rain, Tales from the Forest, Luminous Echoes: A Poetry Anthology, Deep Water Literary Journal, The Blue Nib, Visual Verse: An Anthology of Art and Words and Thank You For Swallowing, among others. 

Anne passionately believes that every poem, like all art, should leave you changed by the experience. Her poem, “In Memoriam II: The Draper,” was the fifth most-read item – across all categories – in The Irish Times on the day of publication, and resulted in a furore of social media commentary. 

She was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Poetry Prize in 2017 and the Bangor Poetry Competition 2016. Originally from the west of Ireland, Anne lives in Australia. She has worked as a business journalist, magazine editor, corporate and government communications director, author and editor. Anne holds a Law degree and qualifications in Communications. 

 

“The town is dead

Nothing but the wind

Howling down Main Street

And a calf bawling

Outside The Fiddlers”

My mother’s words, not mine

In a letter, kept in a drawer

These long years

She had a way with words

My mother

That’s why they came

The faithful of her following

Leaning in to her over the counter

For an encouraging word

Or the promise of a novena

Long before we had

Local radio

Our town had my mother

Harbinger of the death notices

And the funeral arrangements

Bestower of colloquial wisdom

Bearer of news on all things

Great and small

Who was home

And who hadn’t come

Who had got the Civil Service job

And by what bit of pull

The Councillor’s niece

Smug in her new navy suit

Oblivious to the circulating countersuit

“Would you ever think of coming home?”

Her words would catch me

Unawares

Lips poised at the edge

Of a steaming mug

Igniting a spitfire

Of resentment each time

Then draping me for days

I’d wear it like a horsehair shirt

All the way back

Until the sunshine and the hustle

Had worn it threadbare

This extra bit of baggage

In every emigrant’s case

Their mother’s broken heart

I never thought to ask her

“Would you want me to…?

So I could look out at the rain

Circumnavigating the empty street

And shiver at the wind

Whipping in under the door…?”

I don’t miss that question now

On my annual pilgrimage ‘home’

My father never asks it

Like me, I know he feels it

Hanging in the air

Alongside her absence

I miss my mother

And her way with words

(first published in The Irish Times, 31 January 2016)

A penny in a new purse

(That it may never be empty)

The Child of Prague left out all night

(To bring a dry day for the First Holy Communion)

Never pick a flower from a fairy fort

(It will bring down a curse)

Never speak ill of the dead

(No matter how wicked they were, God rest their immortal soul)

A spit on the hand to seal the deal

A prayer to St Anthony to find something lost

To St Jude in the case of lost hope

Novenas on your knees if there’s no hope at all

(Because miracles can happen – just look at Auntie Marie’s neighbour’s first cousin)

Never open an umbrella in the house

(It will stunt your growth)

Eat your crusts

(They’ll make your hair curl, or straight if it’s curly)

Don’t make that face

(If the wind turns, you’ll be stuck with it)

Red and green should never be seen

Never wear shiny shoes with a skirt

Only eat pork if there’s an ‘r’ in the month

Don’t change a clout till May is out

Waste not, want not

Never gift a knife to a friend

(It will cut your ties)

If a coal falls from the fire, a stranger is coming

Don’t believe everything you hear

Seeing is believing

The rules we lived by

Before we had internet or mobile phones or colour tv

Before we knew

For better or worse

That no matter how complicated it might have seemed

Life would never be that simple

Ever again

Because

The wind did turn

Leaving us to face the ugliness

And the rain came down

The wicked were blessed

Hope was lost

Our growth stunted

Our hair curled and uncurled

As colours clashed

And on reflection

A strange underbelly was revealed

We consumed in excess

When we knew it was wrong

Changing everything

Piling wasteful want

Onto wanton waste

Knives out

Ties cut

Sparks flew

Strangers fell

As we followed the herd

Saw too much

Believed too well

So I am turning back

To times past

When all was lost

And my novena is this

Today, just for today

Let everyone

In the whole wide world

Wake

With eyes coloured

Only by love

With hands and minds

Able

Only to be kind

Because miracles can happen

Still

(shortlisted for the Cuirt New Writing Poetry Prize 2017; first published in Tools for Solidarity poetry pamphlet, June 2017)

Mist rolls off moss-green hills

Where wind-wild ponies thunder

Manes flying as they chase

Their seaward brothers

Locked in eternal contest

On this deserted grey mile

Past the little stone churchyard

Long-forgotten graves spilling

Stones onto the sodden bog

A soft snore from behind

My two angels sleeping

Thirteen thousand miles

From all they have ever known

Running our own race

To make the best

Of spaces like this

A rainbow rises along the horizon

And I recognise her

Come for my mother

Locked in her own

Immortal struggle

The sister returned

So I know it won’t

Be long now

And I cry a little at

The unbearable beauty

Of these diastoles

When we are all

Suspended

Here in a heartbeat

Between heaven and earth

(All poems © copyright Anne Casey 2017)