Journey Upstream

By: Noel Monahan

€12.00

Journey Upstream is Noel Monahan’s ninth collection of poetry. Here we witness Monahan navigate his way through mythic landscapes to country towns and urban living. He dips into the community of artists and responds to works of art on the way. He loves to interrogate our past, our heritage and the poet’s place in today’s world of rapid change. Section 4, Let The Images Unfold, is the result of a collaborative work d...

ISBN	978-1-915022-59-2
Pub Date	Thursday, April 25, 2024
Cover Image	River Painting 2 by Padraig Lynch
Page Count	132
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Journey Upstream is Noel Monahan’s ninth collection of poetry. Here we witness Monahan navigate his way through mythic landscapes to country towns and urban living. He dips into the community of artists and responds to works of art on the way. He loves to interrogate our past, our heritage and the poet’s place in today’s world of rapid change. Section 4, Let The Images Unfold, is the result of a collaborative work during the Covid-Shutdown with sculptor, Tom Meskell, musicians Daragh Slake and Pat McManus, and Monahan’s poetic response calls the animals in from the hills to occupy the streets and buildings. The final section, Maynooth Calling, deals with the poet’s short stay at Maynooth’s Seminary, once the largest seminary in the world. This is another of Monahan’s long prose poems, now familiar to many, and this finely wrought poem, both lyrical and satirical, comes alive on the page with enthralling dramatic effect. The reader is invited to join the poet as he makes that spiritual journey of discernment behind walls to the backdrop of ghost rooms, oratories of silence, trains passing in the night and bells ringing ...

“And when we read Noel Monahan’s poems, we are experiencing the immediacy of its composition, Monahan’s wisdom and insight and his marvellous way with words.”

Niall MacMonagle Launching “Chalk Dust”, Cavan Court House, May 2018

“Noel Monahan’s poetry is the work of a consummate and established poet, as proven in this varied, skilled and thoroughly enjoyable collection.”

Enda Wyley Poetry Ireland Review, No. 129, 2019

“When I responded to his last book, a hefty body of selected poems, I said that he carried to the banqueting table of poetry the richness and diversity of a well-nurtured and well-nourished imagination.”

Gerard Smyth Launching Monahan’s collection at Poetry Ireland, Dublin May 2018

“Pablo Neruda in his poem, Nocturnal Establishments, describes himself as a surviving worshipper of the heavens, a category of poets which also includes Noel Monahan.”

Mary Branley The Spark Literary Magazine, No. 33, 2021

Noel Monahan

Noel Monahan is a native of Granard, Co. Longford, now living in Cavan. He has published seven earlier collections of poetry with Salmon Poetry, with an eight collection, Celui Qui Porte Un Veau, a selection of French translations of his work, published in France by Alidades in 2014. A selection of Italian translations of his poetry, Tra Una Vita E L’Altra, was published in Milan by Guanda in 2015. His poetry was prescribed text for the Leaving Certificate English, 2011 to 2012. His play Broken Cups won the RTE P.J. O’Connor award in 2001 and in 2019 his long poem, Chalk Dust, was adapted for stage and directed by Padraic McIntyre for Ramor Theatre. During Covid-19 lockdown in 2021, Noel reinvented his poetry readings by producing a selection of short films entitled Isolation & Creativity, Still Life, Tolle Lege and A Poetry Day Ireland Reading for Cavan Library. Recently, Noel edited Chasing Shadows, a miscellany of poetry for Creative Ireland. Journey Upstream is his ninth poetry collection.