The following review appears in the latest edition of the Burning Bush, ed.
Michael Begnal, 3 Newcastle Road, Galway, Ireland.

Mairéad Byrne, Nelson & the Huruburu Bird (Wild Honey Press), reviewed by
Michael S. Begnal

A back cover blurb by one Alan Dugan succinctly describes this collection
"Mairéad Byrne is an Irish poet in America. She's not an immigrant. She's
just here. She writes with love and fury about what's right and wrong about
Ireland, plus some swipes and kisses at America..." Nelson & the Hun~buru
Birds is a compendium of three unpublished full collections, distilled into
one book, which leads me to wonder: If she was going to have a book
published, why not publish one of these collections first, then (hopefully)
release the others succeedingly in due course? Are these simply the best
poems from each of the three, or were they chosen because they were felt to
interact with each other in some particular way? Minor points, to be sure,
but it did make me curious about where Byrne sees this volume in the scheme
of her overall work.
 But whatever about that Nelson & the Huruburu Birds is a pretty damn good
book in itself. It is more immediately accessible than many readers of the
Wild Honey imprint will be used to. In a way I missed having to struggle
with the intricate texts of Healy or Scully, but at the same time it was
nice to be able to relax a bit and simply soak up the lush imagery and the
idiosyncratically observed details of life and memory. "Lying Awake with the
Windows Open" is a perfect example of what Byrne is capable of: "I heard
shiny green / leaves load with raindrops and spill. / I beard the town
grumble deep in its throat. / I heard darkness congregating in clumps / like
infantry at ease, the nervous gear- / shifts of drivers circling for
cigarettes." Elsewhere, in "The Pools," the darkness is described thusly "I
am talking about dusk, / how it bit like ink into blotting
paper; / night was a big soaked wad. / It was spongy as that. / I could chew
it." Yeah!
 A lot of Irish people, understandably, know America only through the medium
of television or film, even though Saint Brendan is rumoured to have
discovered the place. Byrne's "The Irish Discover America" captures that
moment of arriving, the juxtaposition of reality and media image: 'We hit
land and suddenly / everyone has an American accent. / How did I get here? /
I traveled the few inches, thousands of miles, / in my own skin boat, my
currach, my Boeing. / For the first time I look at the outside world." A
very Irish feeling, I think, finds expression in "Commercial Street": "This
is not home and I don't have to stop / to pass the time of day or night with
you / or anyone. I'm free of that, home too..."
Ireland does figure prominently here, however, in childhood reminiscences
like "Cycling to Marino," or in the "found poem" "Briathra Comónta sa
Teanga/ Common Verbs in the Language" (says the note: "I found this partial
list of Irish language verbs on a table in the staff smoking room in Newpark
Comprehensive School, Dublin..."). (Byrne is quite fond of found poems,
including several others such as a page from a Christie's catalogue, and
screen directions from John Huston's film script for The Dead.) But her most
sustained and penetrating view of Ireland is in "The Pillar," a long major
poem that was previously published by Wild Honey as its own pamphlet. Sizing
up Ireland's post-colonial complexes back through young eyes of 1966, the
year Nelson's Pillar was blown up by the IRA, Byrne gives us a revealing
portrait of a country bogged down in its own history-. "The Pillar had shot
its wad / and we stood in its spume / knee-deep in rubble / not knowing to
take credit or what."
The latter section of Nelson & the Huruburu Birds is wet with streams of
consciousness, and I was occasionally reminded of the early Ferlinghetti.
This is a great book from a poet whose primary talent is description, and
the ability to paint, in 'words, the everyday revelations that lay people
are often immune to.

(?12.95/$12.95/£8.9, Wild Honey Press, 16a Ballyman Road, Bray, Co.
Wick-low, Ireland / www.wildhoneypress.com)