Noted Irish poet Macdara Woods dies at age 76

photograph: Frank Miller/The Irish Times

The poet Macdara Woods, who died on Friday at the age of 76, was regarded as one of the senior figures in Irish poetry. Dublin-born Woods was married to the current Ireland Professor of Poetry, Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin with whom he was also a co-founder and editor of the literary journal Cyphers, a title also given to one of his earliest poem sequences.

Overview
by Macdara Woods

I am here in my waiting room
Over the aural park
Hearing the announcement
Of how the railway lines
Will soon be disconnected 

But how beautiful is the luas
That runs above the park
Beneath my bedroom window
Quick and busy in the dark
Imprinting sense on things 

Up here where I turn on the light
To make a note of it
While down there nightly in the rain
The ghost-train of my life
Rolls on across the steppes 

from The Cotard Dimension
By kind permission of the author and Dedalus Press

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