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dismantle / Anne Tannam

dismantle

By: Anne Tannam

€12.00
dismantle is a reimagining, a re-examining of what it means to be human. Here is the arc of a life, from first cell to last breath and beyond. Pulsating with emotional energy, these poems ask difficult questions with uncertain answers: what is it to be a child, a daughter, a woman, a man? And what's more, what is it to be? Imbued with the fierce energy of the crone, dismantle reclaims our connection to our true wild nature and...
ISBN 978-1-915022-58-5
Pub Date Wednesday, May 01, 2024
Cover Image Darragh Murphy (aj_axis)
Page Count 82
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dismantle is a reimagining, a re-examining of what it means to be human. Here is the arc of a life, from first cell to last breath and beyond. Pulsating with emotional energy, these poems ask difficult questions with uncertain answers: what is it to be a child, a daughter, a woman, a man? And what's more, what is it to be? Imbued with the fierce energy of the crone, dismantle reclaims our connection to our true wild nature and the deep earth. This is a dismantling in the truest sense—of time and memory, of the ideas we inherit, of the self. 



"dismantle is a moving excavation of what it means to be a woman in the world today. Peeling back layers of meaning with precision, Tannam brings us a wild underworld of lost children, mothers and crones, each imbued with a fierce agency often denied them in the old myths. Formally and linguistically virtuosic, ‘dismantle’ is both an exquisite undoing, and a call to explore the wide world."

Jessica Traynor

Author of Pit Lullabies 


"Anne Tannam’s dismantle is formally daring, emotionally charged, and endlessly inquiring, it blew me away with its intensity. Here is a poet at the height of her power. "

Alice Kinsella

Author of Milk: On Motherhood and Madness


"Anne Tannam’s newest collection is imaginative, unpredictable and pulsating with emotional energy. Whether challenging ideas of femininity and masculinity, womanhood and motherhood, re-examining myth, or seeing eye-to-eye with an aching personal loss, Tannam’s language is keenly felt. This is a dismantling in the truest sense – of time and memory, of the ideas we inherit, of the self." 

Luke Morgan

Author of Beast


"By ruminating on the crone, the other, the unfamiliar, the collection imparts power to those silenced by patriarchy. With remarkable investment in the meaning and etymology of words, it explores language's ability to both oppress and liberate. Astonishing, witty, sensational and, above all, it provides the much needed journey out of reticence."       

Dr Tapasya Narang

Postdoctoral Researcher


Anne Tannam

Anne Tannam has published three poetry collections, Take This Life (Wordonthestreet Publishers 2011), Tides Shifting Across My Sitting Room Floor (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and ‘Twenty-six Letters of a New Alphabet’ (Salmon Poetry, 2021). She is the current Poet in Residence with Poetry Ireland (2023-2025). She was awarded a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland in 2022 and from Dublin City Council in 2023. For more on her poetry, visit www.annetannampoetry.ie. Anne is also a Professional Certified Coach who helps writers design and sustain flourishing writing practices. For the past 35 years she’s mentored and facilitated and regularly runs workshops and clinics nationwide and internationally. For more on Anne’s coaching, visit www.creativecoaching.ie

she rarely gets straight to the point







patience she reminds you 

   her hair a tangled nest of twigs and leaves

all the good stuff takes time



                                                                             the earth’s crust hardening / slow

                                                                             shifting continents / the time it rained

                                                                             for two million years / the heavens

                                                                             opening / the earth’s upturned face /

                                                                             throat a river mouth of quenched desire  


* * *


precipice



magpies discover the wood pigeon nest in the tree

outside the house / by the time you get there the

chicks are lying on the footpath / snow angels /

bloodied wings fanning the concrete /  heads caved

in / a shimmering aura about their broken bodies /

soft and yielding when you scoop them up / one

first then the other / placing them out of harm’s

way / reminded of the afternoon when a young

magpie flew down the chimney / its panicked

attempts at flight / your hands firm around its

body / heart beating wildly against the knife’s edge


* * *


using story to ask for forgiveness



in this version you are the woodcutter 


you are the woodcutter’s wife


you are the dead mother

  

you may also be the witch


sometimes she is hansel


sometimes she is gretel


sometimes she is their whispers

in the dark of the hungry night



for brevity’s sake we’ll dispense 

with the pebbles and breadcrumbs and crying



always it is six days before her ninth birthday 


always she is thirsty and you don’t take heed


always her body’s cellular mutiny 

the sickly fruitiness of her breath



like most stories it goes back to an absent mother


a fearful father 


a blindsided moon



in one version a parched forest

crawling on its knees begging for water


a gingerbread house eating itself from the inside out


  and dry eyed death salivating 

rattling her cage 



trying to sweeten her up


(All of the above poems are Copyright © Anne Tannam, 2024)


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