Origin Stories - Oisín Breen

the Kingfisher

Origin Stories – the Kingfisher

The poem, the Kingfisher, is an off-cut, of a kind, reconfigured to stand apart, from my current major work-in-progress. Its genesis lies in slowly building out the world in which the greater work’s narrator struggles between sensuality and an absurdly fanatical religious devotion, and in each object on the island where they walk, there lies a hidden intent they decipher as they come toward revelation. The birds, in particular, that visit the island — this part of the work also responds to Yeats’ Innisfree — each carries a new form of thinking, and the kingfisher’s sleek design, its childish beauty, paired with its utter efficiency, delights and informs the poem’s narrator, in equal measure.

‘the Kingfisher’, recently featured in Pangyrus (@pangyrus): https://www.pangyrus.com/poetry/kingfisher/

BIO

Irish poet, academic, and journalist, Oisín Breen, a Best of the Net Nominee, is published in 103 journals in 20 countries, including in About Place, Door is a Jar, Northern Gravy, North Dakota Quarterly, Books Ireland, The Tahoma Literary Review, La Piccioletta Barca, Decomp, New Critique, and Reservoir Road. Breen’s second collection, Lilies on the Deathbed of Étaín has just been released by Beir Bua Press. It follows his well-received debut, ‘Flowers, All Sorts, in Blossom…’ (Dreich, 2020).

Twitter: @Breen

https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/oisin_breen

Mastodon: @Breen@mastodon.lie