“Artists seem to be more in touch with the feelings of outsiders in our world. And poet Micheal O’Siadhail, a long time friend of TRUST, certainly challenges us to think in his poem Outsider. Micheal was also Chairman of our Board of Adjudicators for our Essay Competition.”<\/p>\n
Alice Leahy, Director & Co-Founder of TRUST<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
OUTSIDER, By Micheal O’Siadhail<\/h3>\n
A sheltered arch or where underground
\nkitchen of an inn sent
\nthrough grids of pavement grating
\nthe warmth of the ass\u2019s breath \u2013
\nWhere did last night\u2019s Christ lie down?<\/p>\n
Every morning for months I watched
\na man I might have been
\nabout my age and bearded too,
\nhis face blotched crimson
\nwith cheap wine and sleeping rough.<\/p>\n
He walked the far side of the street
\nalways hurrying somewhere;
\na father who couldn\u2019t praise, I wondered,
\nor what had blurred his star?
\nFor months our eyes never met<\/p>\n
though the street between us was narrow,
\nuntil that eve he crossed.
\n\u2018Some help,\u2019 he said, but it must have been
\nmy double\u2019s eyes that asked
\nwhere would He lie down tomorrow?<\/p>\n
An old outsider within me winced,
\nshook him off and fled;
\nthat street between us was so narrow –
\nI chose the Inn and was afraid.
\nI\u2019m sure I\u2019ve never seen him since –<\/p>\n
but tomorrow where carafes go round
\na lone presence will pass
\ntremors through our frail togetherness;
\nagain those eyes will ask
\nWhere did last night\u2019s Christ lie down?<\/p>\n
Outside is from \u2018A Fragile City\u2019,
\nMicheal O\u2019Siadhail (Bloodaxe Books 1995)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Micheal O’Siadhail is a poet. His latest collections of poetry are Our Double Time (Bloodaxe Books, 1998) and Poems 1975-1995 : Hail! Madam Jazz and A Fragile City. His poem cycles The Naked Flame, Summerfest, Crosslight and Earlsfort Suite were commissioned and set to music for performance and broadcasting. He has read and broadcast his … Continue reading The Outsiders<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.d1086250.cp.blacknight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/micheal.jpg\" "\\"Micheal")
Micheal O’Siadhail is a poet. His latest collections of poetry are Our Double Time (Bloodaxe Books, 1998) and Poems 1975-1995 : Hail! Madam Jazz and A Fragile City. His poem cycles The Naked Flame, Summerfest, Crosslight and Earlsfort Suite were commissioned and set to music for performance and broadcasting. He has read and broadcast his poetry widely in Ireland, Britain, Europe and North America. Awarded an Irish American Cultural Institute prize for poetry in 1981 and the Marten Toonder Prize for Literature in 1998, he has been a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin and a Professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. He was a member of the Arts Council of the Republic of Ireland (1988-93), of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Relations (1989 -97) and the board of The Dublin International Writers Festival. He is a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review. He is a member of Aosdana (Irish Academy of Distinguished Artists) and was the founding chairman of ILE (Ireland Literature Exchange).<\/p>\n