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March 25, 2025 33 mins

Mícheál McCann joins host Seán Hewitt to chat about bringing queerness to the traditional Irish lament, writers as magpies and cheesecloths, and a brilliant, brave parenthesis placement. Mícheál reads his poem “To an Imagined Child” and Fiona Benson’s “Big Dipper Fireflies (Photinus pyralis).”

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Seán Hewitt (00:00):
The Glimpse

Míchéal McCann (00:05):
It's like I have a sunny disposition. I think being
amongst human beings is thegreatest gift we have. But it's not
like I wake up, wake up in bed withmy cats, and I throw open the
curtains. Do you know what I mean?You have to, like work hard to see
the world in that way, and it's notdeluded.

Seán Hewitt (00:24):
Welcome to The Glimpse, I'm your host Seán Hewitt.
Mícheál McCann is the author ofthree pamphlets of poems, the most
recent Keeper. His firstcollection, Devotion was published
in 2024 and he's the 2024Publishing Fellow at the Seamus
Heaney Center at Queen's UniversityBelfast. Originally from Derry
City, Mícheál now lives and worksin Belfast and is our guest today

(00:48):
on The Glimpse.
Mícheál McCann's debut collectionDevotion is many things, an
inhabitation of Irish literature,an account of queer life, an
exploration of love andrelationships, and a light filled
and tender look at domesticity. Inone time bending sequence, McCann

(01:12):
reinhabits the Irish lament,originally composed by Eibhlín Dubh
Ní Chonaill, creating a heartfeltand grief-filled reimagining, which
places a queer love story right atthe heart of the Irish tradition.
His poems are unusually open andwelcoming and I think, full of a
sense of gratitude for the smallmoments in life that can act as a

(01:34):
solace in an increasingly fraughtworld. Mícheál McCann, welcome to
The Glimpse. It's so good to haveyou here.

Míchéal McCann (01:42):
Thanks, Seán you've said nice things. I appreciate it.

Seán Hewitt (01:45):
You're very welcome. Where are you speaking to us from?

Míchéal McCann (01:47):
So from the Seamus Heaney Center, actually. I borrowed
down here from work up in themountains in West Belfast. And it's
very foggy. You can't see 50 feetin front of you. It's a very sort
of, this is my type of winterevening, not particularly festive.

Seán Hewitt (02:02):
Okay, that's very different weather in Belfast
than what
we have here, which isunusually clear for Dublin. As I
mentioned in the intro that thisyear your debut collection Devotion
came out. I wonder if you couldtell us a little bit about how the
past year since the launch of thebook has been for you?

Míchéal McCann (02:21):
How's it been? So wonderful, you know, it's one of
those things where it's wonderfulbecause your thinking about
publishing changes entirely whenyou're fortunate enough to publish
a book. You know, you strive for solong. I mean, we met when you just
put out Lantern, I remember, and Iwas trying to put out pamphlets and
stuff. And I think you have thisidea of, like a quest, you know,

(02:41):
when I reach the collection stage,you know, but you're still as
unsure of yourself, and ploddingalong, and you're just sort of
doing the same things, but in theway you are at that stage. So it's
great. It sort of, it's humbling,you know, it's been really good for
that reason, you know. And I feelvery lucky, like it's been held so
conscientiously by Gallery. Youknow, they've done a really

(03:03):
beautiful job with it, especiallywith the lamenting stuff, so.

Seán Hewitt (03:07):
How long were you working on the book?

Míchéal McCann (03:09):
Probably the guts of about two years, probably. A lot
of the poems were written fromabout 2021, onwards. The lament, in
and of itself, was about six monthswhere I feel like I blacked out and
came to and then just had this,like 35 page long poem that sort of
still mystifies me a little bit.And then other poems just come in

(03:29):
that sort of organic way that youknow yourself. I don't know it's
such a thrill, isn't it? Youknow, I remember talking to people
who think that a book's organic. Doyou know what I mean? I just think
it's not a mechanical process.

Seán Hewitt (03:43):
Did it change along the way a lot? The book?

Míchéal McCann (03:47):
In the way that I suppose I worked with Leontia Flynn
on my PhD, and I don't think thepoems changed, but maybe my eye for
how poems should look changed. Doyou know?

Seán Hewitt (03:56):
Yeah. I mean, it's sort of evolution, maybe, but not
necessarily always in a lineardirection. I think it's like a
folding inwards of inspiration anddifferent sorts of language. The
title in your book is "Keen forA--" and Irish readers would know

(04:19):
that poem from school, I guess the"Keen for Art O'Leary." Would you
tell listeners a little bit aboutthat poem, some of them may be
unfamiliar with it and and whatdrew you to it?

Míchéal McCann (04:32):
Yeah, so the "Keen for Art O'Leary" was, it was never
written down. It was uttered byEibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill about 251,
years ago, actually, last year, itwas his 250th anniversary,
obviously. So she's a noble womanof sorts. Her husband, Art O'Leary,

(04:52):
was killed by British forces inCork at that time. And, you know,
keening was a sort of profession,you know, professional wailing
women. But actually, prior to thatperiod, even men would have done it
as well. But this woman utteredthis keen so extraordinary, so sort
of full of anger and thisfrightening desire for her husband.

(05:14):
You know, that people were like sostunned that these other keeners
took register and noted down thepoem.
And it's sort of long andfrightening, really frightening.
And the thing that grabbed me, Iremember reading it for the first
time, and there's a scene where shecomes across his corpse in this
sort of like little hilly patch,and, you know, an old woman has,

(05:39):
she thinks, thrown like a robe overhis dead, bloody body. And Eibhlín
Dubh Ní Chonaill sticks her handsinto the wounds and lifts the blood
and drinks it and drinks it. And,you know, as a gay person,
blood is very burdened in adifferent way, you know. So I
suppose that was what started toset my mind going like in I guess

(06:01):
there's two ways to think about thepast and literary canons and stuff
that exclude certain kinds ofpeople. You know, do you see that
as like an opportunity to carveinto something or move away? I
suppose for me, I love Irishliterature so much, and I have
enough of a note of unscholarlinessabout me that I just thought what
would happen if I tried this. ThenI did.

Seán Hewitt (06:23):
Which is a lovely freedom to push into. I think it's
a poem that's been translated manytimes by different poets and
scholars from differentbackgrounds. When it comes to
introducing that poem into yourbook of poems, with its sense of

(06:48):
history, the violence in it, youknow, the kind of other worldliness
of that poem, but also you knowbringing it in to a queer
relationship with your own poems.What does that mean to you? Or, you
know, how did you go about thinkingabout inhabiting that different

(07:10):
angle on history? Because I thinkit's an important thing that a lot
of queer writers have to thinkabout. It's kind of marking out a
kind of historical reference pointfor their own work, and either you
stand firmly in the center of thatcanon, as I think that this poem
does, you know it's such a radicalthing to do. Or you can kind of

(07:34):
about face and turn against thecanon completely. What was your
relationship to it?

Míchéal McCann (07:40):
When I came across that poem, one thing that struck me
is that it is a keen but it's alsoa love poem, and I was trying to
sort of at that time, work througha really awful death that happened
in my family, and at the same time,I feel fortunate to be in a
relationship that has a lot of lovein it. So I think the poem pierced

(08:02):
me in an odd way. I will say Iwrote the poem without thinking of
any of this, you know. I think,like all good poems, if you're
thinking about reception orhistoricity or whatever, it's gonna
not be worth toilet paper, youknow. But I guess when I finished
it, I was sort of really seized bythis sense, like, who am I to do

(08:24):
this? You know, it's because it'ssort of when you're writing about
queer subjects in a context thathasn't been written about. You sort
of feel like, am I standing onpeople's toes? Seán, I don't
really know how to answer yourquestion, except to say that I was
compelled to write it and I decidedto be brave and just let it.

Seán Hewitt (08:46):
As writers, often we're asked to kind of put logic
back on a decision that we nevermade logically, and it could be
quite difficult to retrospectively,kind of come up with the origin
story of something that justarrived. It seems that Devotion as

(09:08):
a collection is fundamentally abook of love poems, or it is at
least pitched towards love. Butunderneath it, there is a lot of
violence simmering, whether it'sincidental violence historical
violence. Is that something that,as you were putting the book

(09:30):
together became apparent to you, orwas it always a kind of conscious
concern that you wanted to temperlove with violence in the book.

Míchéal McCann (09:42):
I suppose I write a lot about family and the terrain in
which I live, you know, politicalviolence and, yeah, the
ramifications of that are veryreal. Love isn't just love blandly
thrown on a wall. You know, it's socomplicated by the trajectory for
which it took to manifest. Itself.And so like, I think, as a queer

(10:03):
person, as a person who lives inthis part of Ireland, as a person
who is just still alive in thispart of Ireland, like to not
acknowledge violence is to just belocked in your room and not
thinking about stuff that'shappening outside.

Seán Hewitt (10:18):
What I thought was really beautiful about the book is
the way that you had ordered thepoems so that we kind of tumble
through deepening understandings ofthe place in which the poems are
being written from, and the poemthat you're going to read for us
emerges in some way out of that.Would you introduce the poem that

(10:42):
you're going to read for us andtell us a little bit about it first
and read it for us.

Míchéal McCann (10:49):
Marilyn Robinson is a very important writer to me, and
one of the things I feel like I'velearned from her is that it's
important that we're not allrecruited into the same models of
thinking. I think writers are thesesort of little magpies for not just
thinking and creativity, but we'rejust sort of these like
cheesecloths through which so muchstuff passes. And this poem that I'm

(11:13):
going to read was me thinking abouta certain kind of knowledge that I
know as a queer person is true, andalso an emotional truth that I feel
like I want to be a parent, right?And I guess I was wrestling with
the fact that two things can betrue at once, or maybe perhaps that
love breaks down book learningquite quickly. So I'll read that

(11:37):
because I think talking about poemsis never as good as just reading
them. But you're very generous.
To an Imagined Child. Friends ofcertain militant dispositions would
have kittens hearing me address youlike this. To have a child, they
say, is a heterosexual fallacy!There's enough tragedy on this

(11:59):
drowning world without a replica ofme, making matters worse. And yet
book-learning crumbles in the faceof a child's toy, a small pink
hairbrush. I dream of you to thesoft cluck of knitting needles. You
would know me always in the samecoat, waiting outside the school
well before I had to. Maybe somepart of us is meant to be weighed

(12:22):
down, I might say to my friends. Adiving line is often deployed in
murky caves so a diver can ascendto gentle water. Child, I would
stand still with this line aroundmy trunk In the shallow water of
our lives, so that you can tugtwice for I'm okay. I'm okay,

(12:42):
daddy, Go well into your own lifeand stand among flowers you cannot
grow and smile knowing thatwherever I go you follow as a
prayer follows hope.

Seán Hewitt (12:55):
Thank you. You're welcome. I was really struck by the
quietness and intimacy of thispoem, and I wanted to touch on the
last line first, particularly, asyou mentioned, Marilyn Robinson is
one of my favorite writers too. Iwonder about poems and prayers,

(13:18):
which often kind of come uptogether, and is sometimes seen as
as kindred. Does that prayer-likeintention, ever inform the way that
you write? You know, do you eversee poems as being related to the
prayer?

Míchéal McCann (13:35):
I think so. But for me, when I'm in that zone, it
doesn't come often where I want towrite a poem, or, you know, like
you're on a plane, for example, andthis moment of clarity, that's the
only way I can understand writingpoems. This moment of clarity
pierces you, and you can sort oftake that consciousness and impress

(13:58):
it into a poem. You know, I thinkthat's just what a prayer is, you
know, it's like a hope for or animpression of something better or
something different, or, you know,like a type of light that directs
you out of the mark of your ownlife. So, yeah, absolutely.

Seán Hewitt (14:14):
I think I'm really struck by the way that you describe
it. You know, the fundamental thingthat really rings through all of
your poems is that impression ofclarity, but also of hope and a
sense of things might be better.Kind of at the end of stanza three,

(14:35):
you say, you know, "there's enoughtragedy on this drowning world
without a replica of me makingmatters worse. And yet" And what
another poet might have done mighthave been to make this a lengthy
poem of critique of you know, whatother people might say and to
take down, but you actually,from stanza three, just lift into a

(15:01):
dream, a sense of a better futureor a different life. Do you find
yourself approaching thingspositively, rather than you know,
succumbing maybe to the temptationto anger or critique or negativity?
Is that? Is that something that's,you know, apparent to you in your

(15:23):
own writing.

Míchéal McCann (15:24):
That's a really beautiful question. I read a book a
long time ago now by MichaelSnedeker called Queer Optimism.
It's a book about happiness andjoy, which we know in critical
writing doesn't get written about alot. And he talks about the
difference between sort of naivehappiness and sort of
adult-informed happiness,or joy, or whatever he's talking

(15:46):
about. And to be clear, you know,that book proceeds through like
suicide, of not wanting to be aliveanymore and persisting, and that is
what informs that sort ofsubjectivity you're talking about.
You know, it's like I have a sunnydisposition. I think being amongst
human beings is the greatest giftwe have. But like, I haven't like,

(16:09):
that's a hard one. It's not like,I just wake up, wake up in bed
with my cats, and I throw open thecurtains. Do you know what I mean?
Like, you have to work hardto see the world in that way, and
it's not deluded. Do you know whatI mean?

Seán Hewitt (16:24):
Yeah, I don't see much poetry by men that's looking into
the kind of the domestic sphere.And that seems to me something
different here. You know, queerdomesticity seems like something
that might be out of fashion, or,you know, you just don't hear about
it a lot and part of the kindof voices in the back of your

(16:49):
poem that might accuse you of aheterosexual fallacy, are perhaps
some of the reasons why we don'thear much of this really
important facet of queer life.You know, we all have home lives as
well and I think that oftenqueer literature is looking in

(17:15):
other places to pull away fromthese ideas that it might call
heterosexual or, you know, it mightsay, are in some ways, traps into
which we fall after liberation, assimilation, or
something like that? It made methink about your experience with

(17:39):
queer poetry as you startedwriting, I wondered what that
process of discovery was like foryou and who have been your kind of
guiding lights, or, you know,touchstones.

Míchéal McCann (17:54):
I had a very formative year around the age of
19, I think when, in like one hour,was introduced to Elizabeth Bishop
and Mark Doty. You can imagine howdazzling that was for me. And I go
back to both of them a lot for verydifferent reasons. You know, I
actually, to be honest, Mark Dotywas, you know, Mark Doty helped me

(18:16):
sort of write about my life inconcrete terms that I never quite
had access to before, but there'ssomething about just that
devastating clarity, without givinganything away, that Bishop has. You
know, Sylvia Plath has done as muchfor me as someone who shares the
same sexuality as me. You know,like I've mentioned Marie Howe
before, I think of all poets livingor dead, she's had the most

(18:40):
transformative impact to me, do youknow? So, yeah

Seán Hewitt (18:43):
I can hear her in the background of your poems.
And I think I'm glad you mentionedMark Doty as well, because I, you
know, in a geeky way, there wassomething in some of your line
breaks that I was like, "Oh, you know, that's such a good
line break." And then I thought,"yeah, that's also
quite a Mark Doty line break,"child, I would stand still with

(19:05):
this line around my trunk in theshallow water" line break, or
actually stanza break "of ourlives." And I think that “of our
lives” is such a Mark Doty-esqueaddition, because he has this way of
pulling the apparently normal, juststanding with you in water into

(19:28):
something kind of expansive. Youknow, he has that kind of prayerful
expansion in his problems thatalways seem to me to give them a
great sense of lift and kind of theunexpected. I love him too.
Okay. Mícheál McCann, we are goingto take a short break now, and when
we come back, you're going to tellme about one of your favorite and

(19:51):
my favorite poets, Fiona Benson,and a poem about fireflies.

Míchéal McCann (19:56):
Sounds good.

Cathy & Peter Halstead (20:07):
We hope you're enjoying this second season
of The Glimpse. It's just one smallpart of the Adrian Brinkerhoff
Poetry Foundation. We're thefounders, Peter and Cathy Halstead.
Our goal is to make great poetrymore accessible to everyone, and we

do that in a variety of ways: through partnerships, our film (20:25):
undefined
series, this podcast, and ourwebsite, brinkerhoffpoetry.org. We
hope these works will lure you intoa parallel universe the way a
Möbius strip brings you intoanother dimension without leaving

(20:45):
the page you're on. Thank you somuch for listening.

Seán Hewitt (20:48):
Mícheál McCann, we were speaking about your poem “To an
Imagined Child,” and now you'regoing to read one of my favorite
poets, and I imagine your favoritepoets as well, or else you wouldn't
have chosen Fiona Benson. This is apoem from Firefly Suite. Would you

(21:09):
tell us a little bit about why itis that you've chosen it and then
read it for us?

Míchéal McCann (21:14):
How to summarize Fiona Benson in a few words? For
anyone listening who hasn't heard of her, go and read her. She's a
mixture of tender heartedness andferocity I've ever read. And the
reason I chose this poem is thatshe marries technical virtuosity

(21:36):
with incredible feeling, you know,and isn't afraid to be very ugly in
the poems, you know, there's like,sort of a sharp jankiness to them,
and then there's also incrediblecontrol. And oh gosh, I'm actually
becoming incoherent. I love herwork so much.

Seán Hewitt (21:52):
No, I think so too. I mean, she's such a brave poet as
well as an astute one, and I findher poems completely incredible. So
why don't we stop gushing about it?We'll gush again afterwards. But
would you read it for us?

Míchéal McCann (22:09):
Yes, I will read it. So this is the first poem from
a sequence called Firefly Suite. Sothis poem is called "Big Dipper,
Fireflies (Photinus pyralis)" andIt's dedicated to Mair Bosworth.
Silently at dusk The big dippersrising from the grass – green and

(22:32):
upwards, cinders, gentle, wanderingstars – and we two on our knees
cupping them up, holding themclose, like something we lost at
the edge of the forest and loved.How we are enthralled as the soft
green flush in the lamp we make ofour hands comes and goes, how we

(22:53):
peer into the improvised chamberswe make with our fingers to see
them housed, their beetle wingsstriped like sunflower seeds, and
the tender segments of theirbellies glimmering like tree-sap
breathing, an emerald electricpulse. And though we've been
disenchanted, strangers toourselves in multiple prisons,

(23:18):
unleaved, unskyed (I've been readyto lie down dearest dust, I have
wanted to die) once more in wonderthe raw green girl who lives in me
still trembles, ignites; and weopen our hands like books, let them
fly.

Seán Hewitt (23:40):
So good. I kind of want to talk about every single
line at this point. But you knowwhen you when you read it, their
bellies glimmering like tree sapbreathing an electric an emerald
electric pulse. And although I'venever seen fireflies or big dipper

(24:02):
fireflies, you almost feel that youcould recreate them in your mind
from this, which is a strangething with insects as well, because
they're so kind of alien to us. Buteven the idea of them having
beetle wings, stripes, likesunflower seeds, the tender
segments of their belliesglimmering, you know, we go from

(24:22):
this quite otherworldly opening,which almost seems like,
a fairy tale opening, where at theedge of the wood there are glowing
things as kind of even the sense ofconstellations and stars and two
people wandering towards it, andthen zoom in straight down onto the

(24:43):
tiniest, kind of tender moment. Andwhen I said before about Fiona
Benson being a brave poet, thatparenthesis towards the end of the
poem is such a brave moment.

Míchéal McCann (24:59):
Staggering.

Seán Hewitt (25:00):
"I've been ready to lie down, dearest dust. I have
wanted to die." It just takesthe heart out of you when you read
that, because everything in thatmoment is suddenly weighted with
its possible other life or its pastlife, that seems to actually

(25:24):
increase the form of wonder in thepoem.

Míchéal McCann (25:27):
I think it's all about reenchantment, you know, like
that. We have these sort ofimprovised chambers, like blue,
green and like this littleparenthetical note doesn't detract
from that, but it also, you know,is really interesting to me about
how the human spirit moves towardsa wonder, despite, yeah, you know,

(25:50):
I just, I just, I find it soremarkable how she's managed to
make that parentheses and thisglimmering, glowing, moving poem
work together.

Seán Hewitt (25:59):
Yeah. I mean, in some way, it's a poem about re
enchantment and everything thatthat kind of entails. It seems to
me, a sort of redemption of thingsand grace, maybe. And in some
ways, having the admission inparenthesis there at once kind of

(26:21):
gives you a sense of thedisenchantment that we're moving
away from, and what power theremust be in enchantment to do that.
But also, I think, in bracketingit, it almost comes as an aside in
this moment, so it doesn't actuallypuncture the moment of the poem. It

(26:44):
doesn't end there. You know, we gostraight back to the wonderful
thing. And so the moment oftenderness is held within the poem.

Míchéal McCann (26:56):
I think it's made all the more brilliant for its
presence, though, do you know whatI mean? I just, "brave" is the word
she used, you know? But I think weare like an accumulation of all the
things that have brought us to thepoint we're at. You know, I very
much read this poem as like aflashing moment within a really
extraordinarily beautifulexperience where I've been ready to

(27:18):
lay down dearest dust. I havewanted to die, and then it goes
again. You know, it's miraculous,is what I would describe this in
her whole work as.

Seán Hewitt (27:28):
I mean, to begin a sequence like this is impressive,
because where are you gonna goafter? The idea of writing that
poem and then sitting down andthinking, "Okay, and another one"
is an incredible feat that I'mextremely jealous of and amazed by.

(27:48):
You know, I have a new sense ofwonder in the world. I've become
very sad that I haven't seen theBig Dipper Firefly, or had this
moment myself,

Míchéal McCann (28:01):
I find myself thinking about the term
reenchantment, because there'snothing divine going on here, you
know, like the very title of thepoem, even, like the little sort of
Latin species note indicates likethere's nothing miraculous about
this, you know, yeah. And I thinkan extraordinary way for me to

(28:22):
think about this poem is this washere all along, you know.

Seán Hewitt (28:26):
I think that this poem, and the sequence is, it was
part of a project for Fiona, wasn'tit? About biodiversity And
insects and, I think that youcan listen to the podcasts that
Mair Bosworth produced, ofthis, of the sequence. Am I

(28:49):
right?

Míchéal McCann (28:50):
I think you're right. I remember that

Seán Hewitt (28:51):
That’s where it comes from and I think that part of the
precision in the language isobviously Fiona's, but it's also
kind of informed by the sort ofclose attention that scientists do
as well. And maybe the bracketedkind of species name there is a
bridging of the gap between thepoet's world view. The big dipper

(29:14):
fireflies is kind of the poet's wayof describing, and then the
Latinate name is the scientific andin this poem, they kind of blend
together. You know, there's such asmall precision in the language,
and then it has this lift whichfeels poetic as well. I don't know.

(29:35):
I think that there's something thatfeels almost collaborative about
the way that this poem comes together.

Míchéal McCann (29:41):
I mean, I'm sure listeners are thinking within the
minute, but one of the greatesthonors of my whole life is
realizing that you can just live alife talking about poems like we've
been talking about a parenthesesfor how long, but what we're doing
in the world we live in is one ofthe few things that doesn't hurt

(30:03):
anyone. We're talking aboutparentheses and like, you know, but
I'm serious, like, and that'sso extraordinary to think.

Seán Hewitt (30:12):
Well, I mean, in some ways it's, you know, you were
talking about, kind of theredirection of attention. And
that's kind of what reading poemslike this does to us, even for a
half an hour in the day, you'repulled towards an attention on
something as small as a parenthesisand what it might make you feel, or

(30:33):
how strangely brave you know, threelines of poetry can can be in the
middle of a poem. So there issomething in that. I don't
know what we should apologize for.Yeah, what are you working on now?

Míchéal McCann (30:54):
None of your Business (laughs).

Seán Hewitt (30:58):
I like it when people refuse to tell me these things.

Míchéal McCann (31:01):
I am working on my second book of
poems at the minute, which sort oforbit the lives of the saints,
hagiography, where I'm sort ofzoning in and out of written lives,
unwritten lives, my family,otherwise, you know, and it's fun,

(31:24):
it's very different. And, yeah, I'mwriting, that is what I'm doing.

Seán Hewitt (31:29):
That is very exciting, as I'm talking to you now, I can
literally just put my hand above mybookcase and pull out the Penguin
Dictionary of the Saints, which Iused to have by my bed. I found it
in a charity shop, and I wouldevery night or so do you know
letter E of the saints, and there'ssuch incredible stories and so much

(31:55):
variety in them, I can't wait tosee what you do with them. That is
very exciting news.
Mícheál McCann, it has been a real pleasure talking to
you. Thank you for taking the timeto come on The Glimpse

Míchéal McCann (32:07):
That was a gift. Thanks, Seán
Míchéal McCann:

Seán Hewitt (32:18):
Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host. Seán Hewitt
Mícheál's poem "To an ImaginedChild is from Devotion, published
in 2024 and aired with the kindpermission of the author and the
Gallery Press. Fiona Benson's poemBig Dipper Fireflies is from
Ephemeron, published by JonathanCape in 2022 copyright Fiona

(32:38):
Benson. It was aired with thepermission of the author, care of
Rogers, Coleridge and White
Coming up next week, poet NithyKasa talks about the challenge of
balancing her life, identity, andwork between Dublin and the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Make sure to subscribe to TheGlimpse wherever you get your

(32:58):
podcasts. You can also findepisodes on our website,
Brinkerhoff poetry.org/podcast.We'd also love to hear from you.
Drop us an email at the glimpsepoetry podcast@gmail.com The
Glimpse is a production of theAdrian Brinkerhoff Poetry
Foundation. I'm your host, SeánHewitt. Our Senior Producer is
Jennifer Wolfe. Kat Yore is ourtechnical director and mixing

(33:22):
engineer. Editorial Director AmandaGlassman is our curator and
production coordinator. Amy Holmesis the foundation's Executive
Director, and our co foundersare Cathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks
for listening.
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