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Irish Examiner
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Poetry review: A debut that urges us to care
Care is Jennifer Horgan's debut collection from the ever-excellent Doire Press. Horgan's poems have been described by William Wall as 'at once tender and profoundly alienated, elegiac, and acerbic'. Her voice, he says, is 'raw… uncompromising' and it's hard to disagree. Divided into five sections, this is a collection that very deliberately speaks to Ireland in the 2020s. Every line, every image is arresting and carefully delivered. These poems challenge us to reconcile with our past, they shine a light on our attitudes and behaviours towards women, and they ask us to imagine a different future. The book begins with the poem It's Just a Dream I Had. Like much of Horgan's work, it presents a world that sits somewhere at the meeting point of dream and reality. In the opening stanza we meet a mother figure who is 'slumped in a bath' before being told that the speaker is 'drawn to the grey hair inside/her thighs, the dough-layered stomach'. There's also a son 'high up on a bunk, as if on a ship that forgot to sink' and a father who 'sits like a Buddha in a trance of desireless retreat'. The speaker, seemingly the new owner of this haunted dwelling, informs us that they are seeking 'an exorcism' on the place. The possibility of this being a metaphor for a society, a nation, or an individual coming to terms with a dark past is obvious. In the final stanza, we're told that 'even the tea we drink holds her water,/refusing to turn a healthy colour, years after the rooms were gutted'. Some things, it seems, cannot be expunged. Horgan is always unflinching, but she strikes a gentler, more wistful note in the excellent Last Summer's Dresses; a standout piece amongst the whole collection. We meet the speaker as she carries out the mundane task of handwashing two dresses. The poem gains in intensity as the dresses, and the chore, prompt memories: 'Last summer…the dry terrain of an Italian villa.' We learn that the second dress was last worn on a trip to Naples: 'We ended up running down that train platform. I felt the blood drip dripping down my thighs as I tried to keep pace.' Then the killer line: 'I cried for you to stop and you didn't.' The poem closes with an extraordinarily evocative image, brilliant in its simplicity as the dresses hang together on the line 'both restored/two soldiers, two uniforms, drying'. There are no romantic illusions here about Ireland's past or present but those left behind by rapid change are portrayed with empathy. Letter from an Old Man Standing at the New Cork Docks is a longer poem that gives voice to a man coming to terms with the realisation that the world has moved on without him. Things, however, are never hopeless and these characters show resilience: 'A strange, strange quiet is happening here. And the quiet for me has never been louder… I'm glad of it really'. Horgan's voice is striking in its bluntness but this is a book that, as the title suggests, wants us to care — for ourselves and each other. The speaker in almost every poem is driven by an impulse to seek and give love. That said, good intentions don't always have good outcomes, as the darkly comic Home Visit after Bereavement illustrates: 'I leave so drunk I start talking to the dog… Out of my mind'. More than anything, this is a book filled with outstanding poems. Horgan gives voice to a range of characters and concerns not often seen in Irish literature. Debut collections don't normally come this strong.
Irish Examiner
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Beginner's pluck: Teacher and newspaper columnist Jennifer Horgan
A shy, sensitive child who worried what other people thought, Jennifer started writing poetry aged 10 or 11. 'I was interested in death — my mum's parents had died when she was 12, and I wrote dark, dramatic poems,' she says. 'I didn't read much until I was a teenager.' Considering journalism as a career, Jennifer started writing freelance for the Evening Echo in her early 20s: 'But someone said I wasn't tough enough for journalism, and I thought, I have an English degree, so I can teach.' After training, she moved to London and worked in an all-boys' Catholic comprehensive school in East London. 'It was a deep culture shock,' she says. 'At first, I felt at sea and cried every day. I got lost on the tube, but after a year I loved it.' Care, by Jennifer Horgan. After six years, married with two children, Jennifer moved to Abu Dhabi, working in an international school: 'We had a third baby and came home in 2018. I now teach three days a week in an Educate Together Secondary school.' Also, Jennifer does some freelance journalism: 'I wrote 'Secret Teacher' for the Irish Examiner for some years, and in 2021 wrote a non-fiction book, O Captain, My Captain, on the education system. I now write features for The Echo and a column for the Irish Examiner.' Who is Jennifer Horgan? Date of birth: 1980 in Cork. Education: Scoil Mhuire; University College Cork, English and philosophy; MA in English; H Dip. Home: Cork. Family: Husband Ciaran, children Sam, 14, Anna, 12, and May, 10. The day job: Secondary school teacher, 'and creative projects with the city council'. In another life: 'I'd love a nomadic life; travelling, journaling everything.' Favourite writers: Seamus Heaney; Donal Ryan; Annie Ernaux; Doireann Ní Ghríofa; Nuala O'Faolain; Joan Didion. Second book: 'I'm writing a second collection.' Top tip: Write. 'It's the only way to improve.' Instagram: @ The debut: Care. Doire Press: €16. These arresting, sometimes stark poems concentrate on the vulnerability of people; of kindnesses and slights; of motherhood and daughterhood — and of the challenges caused by the pandemic. The verdict An original and perceptive examination of the frailty of living. Jennifer Horgan will make an appearance at The West Cork Literary Festival on July 11 (
