De Maart
Legend
Back when girls were schooled
to obey, we learned of a woman
who quit her father’s domain
and took to the rutted roads.
Brave as the wind, she dismissed
warring chieftains like children,
shouldered a bishop’s mantle,
commanded the Shannon’s flow.
She banished the cobbler
who raised a hand to his wife,
and counted buds on the ash
as a king counts his silver.
Washerwomen, scullery girls,
spinners and weavers:
all walked in Brigid’s footsteps
and couldn’t be called back home.
(Unpublished poem)
Biography
Born in 1961, Jane Clarke grew up on a farm in the west of Ireland and now lives with her wife in the uplands of county Wicklow. She holds a BA in English and Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin and an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales, and has a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Jane Clarke is the author of three poetry collections, „The River“ (2015), „When the Tree Falls“ (2019) and „A Change in the Air“ (2023) published by Bloodaxe Books. She edited the illustrated anthology „Windfall: Irish Nature Poems to Inspire and Connect“ (Hachette Books Ireland, 2023).
She was the 2022 recipient of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Award and she received an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary Award in 2024.
Jane’s fourth collection will be published by Bloodaxe Books in October 2026. She is currently editing an illustrated anthology of poetry and prose for publication by New Island Books in September 2025. Her most recent collection, „A Change in the Air“, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2023 and the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023 and longlisted for the Laurel Prize 2023 for nature and ecopoetry.
janeclarkepoetry.ie
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