Wormley

Busts : The statutes of Kilkenny forbade English traveling or living in Ireland to act like Irish or use any Irish mannerisms or language. Seriously. The heritage of written codes which line the halls of history are the proof of the assertion that the English formally attempted cultural genocide on the Irish. The rule were ignored and therefore were busts. Yes, another double meaning. Breath : The steam seen during exhale in winter is likened to steam of held back tears boiling in rage. Keening is an ancient Irish practice of wailing at a funeral. Crack : This may be the flip side to the Hindu gem-net construction wherein infinity is not merely flawed but an illusion altogether. The infinity, here, may be many things. It isn’t clear. However, one student hypothesis is that it represents English power which tries to magnify itself through myriads of devices or quasi-legal contrivances. Depression often magnifies adversity. There is a general lesson here. Manx : I don’t think that the cat of this name is even remotely alluded to, despite one very long essay by a student (who flunked). Where does one begin with this one? Well, that’s why we have students, to torment them with poems such as this. I love this poem! It has so many cross currents. First, the obvious. Manx is a term that denotes ‘of the Isle of Man’ in the Irish sea. Isle of Man has broad linguistic appeal as in ‘mankind’. It also refers to the native language, or what is also called Gaelige. So it connotes a form of speech. This sits subliminally in the poem by way of aural approximation (another example of aural approximation is ‘ship reckonings’).