POET’S CORNER

By Cian PierceStarting with this issue I would like to introduce a sub-section for Arts and Literature called ‘Poet’s Corner’. I’ll be using this section to share my favourite poems mainly by Irish authors, but I might also share book recommendations, information on upcoming events in UCC and throughout Cork etc. Arts and Lit should be for the community by the community so if there’s any poem, book or event you’d like to see receive a shoutout please feel free to send in submissions to my email arts@uccexpress.ieTo emphasize my focus on the Irish artistic community, the first poet I want to highlight is Sadhbh Goodwin, I will be focusing more on them in a later issue. He is a UCC Quercus creative and performing arts scholar. Dawn Treader Days The pigtailed kid in the pictures. I miss who I once was butI think I must be better now. The kid I wasWas kinda cruel/kinda cuteThe kid kept quiet when told they were bright, the kidI was thought they were betterThan the rest. The kid I was, was cruel – kinda.The kid I was regrets the things they said and knowsThey know better. They wish that some thingsHad been better explained:Like birthday parties, truth-or-darelike growing up. Like growing up, the kid I was wishesthat some parts were optional. Their bound ribs warp to fit the form of the poem.I run ribbon ridges between my teeth, the kid thinks:Maybe it is not like this for everyone. The kid thinks they are bright enough for the poem.The kid is haunted by the things that they said.Maybe it is not like this for everyone, the kid still doesn’t have an answer and can’t move on.The gold bracelet tightens hot around their freckled forearmAnd no matter how hard they tear they can’tSeem to break through spreading scales.This body is good, but not theirs, twisted reptilianIn a shattered mirror. “This poem was written in response to one of my favourite books as a kid, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, or rather in response to my childhood interpretation of it. As a young trans kid I was always more interested in the concept of being freed from a body that doesn’t fit than with the extremely obvious religious metaphor in the book.”