Transcripts

SPEAKER: Ireland's new president is a daily reminder of the importance of poetry to the culture and history of that nation. A poet and writer himself, Michael D. Higgins took office in November. In his inaugural address, the new Irish President said that Ireland's tradition of poetry and song helped the nation deal with difficult times.

That's the backdrop for the visit of this year's winner of the Laurence O'Shaughnessy prize for Irish poetry, Jared Smith. The prize is given annually by the Center for Irish Studies at the University of Saint Thomas. Smith is visiting this week for events on the St Thomas campus and in the community. He stopped by our studio and shared a poem from his new collection, The Fullness Of Time. And this poem includes a nod to Minnesota's own Robert Bly.

JARED SMITH: Dionys of clouds, you get a lot of snow in Minnesota. We don't in Ireland. We have over the last two-- not this winter. Winter of 2011, we had a Siberian winter almost. And I think the winter of 2010 was quite snowy. And this poem was written I think around early 2000 after one of those first, we hadn't had snow for years. And so it was an unusual Dublin experience to have this kind of snowfall.

And as a reference to Tree Rock Mountain, which is a mountain out beyond Dublin. And the title-- the snow clouds are coming in. And I think I was sort of traveling somewhere and saw this and the poem followed. And I do borrow a line from your wonderful poet, Robert Bly, which just sits in snugly, and he now knows I have borrowed that line.

The Unease Of Clouds.

The unease of clouds is there to see in the sky that touches three rock mountain.

Last night we heard a weatherman's announcement that hearts would freeze in the falling temperatures, the blast of the easterlies.

This, as Bly and one of his snow poems says, is the sort of snowfall that starts in late afternoon when the sky is crepuscular and threatening, sending soft flurries at first, then the heavier stuff like a pointless spectacle.

To the hillsides of Myrtle and walls of the prisons, it brings the glow of the far north, the solemnity of the shadow of the cross, the snow that sweeps into foxholes, that blows through the bogs, making everything abstract.

SPEAKER: It's the Dublin poet Jared Smith reading his poem, The Unease Of Clouds. Smith is this year's recipient of the O'Shaughnessy prize for poetry given by the Center for Irish Studies at the University of Saint Thomas. And he'll read more poems tonight at a public reading at 7:30 on the St Thomas campus in Saint Paul. More of my conversation with Jared Smith about his life and poetry and journalism will be online on the state of the arts blog. Look for it at mprnews.org.