‘Felicia McCarthy’s poems are rooted in the living world and are both luminous and sensuous – she enlightens us of the human condition, affirming us always as to what it is to be alive with wisdom and compassion.’
Menna Elfyn, Award-winning Welsh poet
‘These are the best sort of poems, written with a steely and yet gracious authority. Felicia McCarthy has a rare, rich voice, brimming with life, experience and empathy. The one word, the only word to describe her writing is strong. And this strong collection arrives right on time, it being the strong medicine the world needs.’
Grace Wells, Irish poet
‘Felicia McCarthy’s My Country is the Whole World exposes the key difference between knowledge and wisdom. This long-awaited collection pays attention to anglophone poetic tradition, but adds to the discussion, rather than merely assimilating. McCarthy is a poet who possesses a keen turn of phrase, a poet’s eye and the empathy that we as humans should aspire to possess.’
Liz Quirke Ph.D, Award-winning poet & educator
‘In poems that are either lusciously lyrical or powerfully narrative, McCarthy embraces a world where “The mind drifts away, as it must,/finds something that is beautiful/... keep us tethered to earth.” She tethers us both to ancestors – a gypsy shaman, her grandmother, and mother – as well as to mythical figures like Persephone, Picasso’s women, Charon’s wife, and Medea.’
Carolyn Martin Ph.D, Poet & editor of KOSMOS - Journal of Global Transformation, USA
‘In language both sensual and stark, Felicia McCarthy’s poems explore possibilities of re-invention for individuals, species, landscapes. Her work combines the classic American belief in second acts with a woman’s intuitive understanding of the pain and courage involved in birth, and in rebirth. McCarthy’s voice is flecked with humour, grounded by experience, compelling in its warmth and honesty. Her poems are good company in challenging times.’
Susan Millar DuMars, Author, Ireland & USA
‘Drawing on the multiple layered inspirations of history and ancestral memory, the patient strength of the female, and motherhood in its various guises, including Mother Nature herself, this is poetry of elegance and substance. In short, this is a hugely varied and impressive collection.’
Denise O’Hagan, Poet & publisher, Australia
‘I can't express enough how powerful this book is. As we see-saw between the personal and historical, between America and Ireland, between patriarchy's stranglehold and matriarchy's promise, I feel a surge of hope that women can inhabit their lives to their fullest potential without retribution of dismissiveness, including their own.’
Sandra Yannone, Poet, USA
Felicia McCarthy is a poet, writer, scholar and educator. She is a member of Irish PENN. She holds an Honors BA and MA in English Language and Literature from Trinity College, Dublin. She has a second MA in Women’s Studies from UCD with a thesis on the poetry of Eavan Boland. She is a creative writing facilitator in both Fingal County Council and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County library systems. She lives in Dublin.
Poet Mother
for Liz
Don’t let the baby swallow your words,
the ones that arrive in the night
as you swaddle her, singing.
Repeat into her tiny ears the rhymes
you will write in the morning.
She won’t mind what it is, as long
as you sing softly and rock her gently
in the rhythm of your next poem.
This will keep the words from
stifling you, from choking her.
She loves all your creations.
The lines you remember at dawn
will become the maps she will take
away from these sweet days
and nights in your arms.
_____________________________________________________
Full Circle
I am from corn, hot Iowa miles of it, and the smell of ether
seeping from a leather bag on top of the fridge. I am from
pony men and card sharks, drunks, and steam engine train drivers.
I am from blue pencil marks on galley proofs, typed on an upright
Royal. I am from screen doors slapping against armies of Canadian
soldiers. I am from the dog days of August, the ice storms
of winter, and the frozen mud-trenched roads of spring.
I am from a lake that died and a river that burned, from the Erie
the Cuyahoga, and a town called Ashtabula. I am from ore boats
on the horizon with the foghorn sounding a warning across the lake
on a still autumn night. I am from the Bascule bridge, the brick yards,
the rail yards, and a back yard that held a Great Lake. I am from
a ham-fisted man with a fedora and a black skirted priest; both
with whiskey breath and an enviable reach.
I am from among her effects: The loose powder box of pasteboard
stuffed with old letters. My dearest Girl, I read, and Dear Grand Girl.
I am from tenant farmers on Mayo’s Foot of the Reek
to McCarthy’s farm on Allegheny’s Black Creek, finally
returned from the forced migration known as an Gorta Mór. *
* The Great Hunger
_____________________________________________________
The L Word
Love is a thing of twoness.
– D.H. Lawrence
The rock and the roll of it
the neck-arcing ache of it
the soft honeyed silence
at the beginning and end of it
the sweet tender risk of it
the quiet quickening of it
the sound of your heart
beating in sync with mine.
The dear sweat and wet of it
the swelling tide smell of it
the heat at the height of it
the depth and the breadth
of the give and the take
we sleep and vow to keep
passion and love alive, beshert.
We have both world enough, and time.*
* Andrew Marvel, to his coy mistress.
The above poems are
Copyright © Felicia McCarthy, 2023
