Some poems exist on the page. Others live in the voice. I will never forget Timothy Donnelly’s reading — manifestation? summoning? — of his lyric “Bóín Dé” in the low light of the bar where we held our Issue Nine launch party in March 2023.
I remember him being at the end of the lineup, the “let’s wrap this up and get back to partying” slot, in which a reader has to work extra hard to keep the audience’s attention. He walked up, took the mic, and explained that “Bóín Dé” — literally, “little cow of God” — is the Gaelic term for ladybug. And then he launched into the poem with a voice fit for an incantation, almost singing the lyric’s invocation: “Little cow of god, the wattage of your red / reverberates the earth.” Was this going to be a joke, like the ancient poem in praise of a flea? I laughed with delight when, in a flourish of rolling r’s, Donnelly saluted his subject with a “Bravissima!”
But the poem isn’t a joke. Or it is a serious one, a witty prayer, moving precisely for its commitment to the bit, for turning irony into veneration. Donnelly’s lyric evokes the sublime intricacies of John Donne’s “The Flea,” George Herbert’s “The Flower,” and Walt Whitman’s expansive multitudes. But it also feels totally new.
TIMOTHY DONNELLY
Little cow of god, who had been sleeping on a pom-pom
I sewed by hand onto a store-bought curtain till I jostled you
awake, you who flew to my laptop’s light and landed on the staves of
my worksurface, tell me — am I dying?
Read the full poem now. You’ll never see a ladybug the same way again.
Sincerely,
Max Norman
Associate Editor, The Drift
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Image credit: Juliana Toro
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Ecstatic, that poem. Thank you.