THE YELLOW RIVER - Seán McSweeney & Gerard Smyth
The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.
The Yellow River is a tributary of the Blackwater (Kells), which joins the Boyne at Navan, County Meath that unites the personal histories of poet Gerard Smyth and artist Sean McSweeney. Gerard Smyth spent many summers in Meath staying with his grandmother and an aunt, whilst originally Sen McSweeney’s family lived in Clongill until the untimely death of his father. Over two years Gerard Smyth revisited Meath in further inquiry with Belinda Quirke, Director of Solstice, in the development of a new suite of poems, recollecting and revisiting significant sites of occurrence in the poet’s and county’s history. Sean McSweeney created new work from trips to his original home place and the county. McSweeney here responds lyrically to particular sites of Smyth’s poetry, whilst also depicting in watercolour, ink, tempera and drawing, the particular hues of The Royal County.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
While the creation of this book has been a deeply personal journey, many others
have accompanied me on the way and I wish to thank them: first and foremost Seán
McSweeney, his wife Sheila and their daughter Orna. I am particularly grateful
to Belinda Quirke, director of Solstice Arts Centre, for initiating this project and
providing me with this opportunity of a Meath homecoming - and not least for her
care and attention on my trips to revisit old haunts in the county. My thanks to the
board of Solstice and Meath County Council for its support of Seán and myself as
writer and artist. Professor Thomas Dillon Redshaw in Minnesota, whose instincts
I trust, was my first reader of these poems and his feedback was invaluable. My
editor and friend at Dedalus Press, Pat Boran ( three poems in this sequence initially
appeared in Dedalus books, "The Blackbirds of Wilkinstown", from A Song of
Elsewhere, part 3 of "Butcher, Baker, Accordion Player" (revised here ) and "Today
is Not Enough" from The Fullness of Time: New and Selected Poems - the latter was first
published in my debut book of poems, The Flags Are Quiet, New Writers' Press, 1969).
The line from F R Higgins is from his poem "Father and Son" ( Father and Son: Selected
Poems, Arlen House ). And always, my wife Pauline - the first of our many journeys
together was to Meath. GS
Published on the occasion of the exhibition
THE YELLOW RIVER
28 January – 23 Mar 2017
Produced by Belinda Quirke for Solstice Arts Centre
Published by:
Solstice Arts Centre
Railway Street, Navan, Co. Meath, C15 KWP1, Ireland
Tel. 046 9092300 | info@solsticeartscentre.ie | www.solsticeartscentre.ie
© Solstice Arts Centre, the artists, and the authors and may not be reproduced in any
manner without permission
ISBN 978-0-9957041-0-7
Photography: Sheila McSweeney
Design: Oonagh Young at Design HQ
Print: Die Keure, Belgium
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