Jessica Traynor was born in Dublin in 1984. Her poems have been published with two collections by Dedalus Press, Liffey Swim (2014),  shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award, and The Quick (2018). She won the Listowel Poetry Prize in 2011, was named Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year in 2013, and in 2014 was the recipient of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary. New work has been commissioned by the Arts Council, Poetry Ireland, and the Salvage Press. She has worked as Literary Manager for the Abbey Theatre and as Deputy Museum Director at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum.

THE ARTANE BOYS’ BAND

Da used to swing me over the turnstile,

to see the Dublin matches. I remember

the sight of my own legs, dangling.

I’d never see much of the game;

what’s left is the smell of men,

their coats steaming rain and beer,

being hoisted by my ribs above

the crowd, the pitch spread out

green and vast, the distance of it.

And every half-time the band

playing on the field, their music rising

and falling with the seaweed stink

that rushed in from the bay.

There’s the lads, Da would say,

and he’d wag his finger in a warning

that told me these matchstick boys

made music because they were outlaws,

each cymbal clash a cry of mea culpa,

and I imagined myself out there with them

in this rainy coliseum with my Da as Emperor

giving the thumbs down,

shaking his head for the loss of his son

to that criminal gang:

the bold boys of the Artane Band.