Painting Rain

by Paula Meehan

Painting Rain explores an Ireland where uncontrolled development is tearing apart a sustaining ecology. Paula Meehan sifts through the lore and memory available to her own journey through life, the small victories and large defeats that shape a world. Hers is an ambitious meditation, from that point where private memory, mythology and ecology meet. The home, the city’s heart, neglected suburban battlegrounds, all are shot through with visionary light. In poems of loss, hymns to the empty world, celebrations of people and place, Meehan confronts the darkness that everywhere threatens. These are poems that sustain belief in the power of language to reveal, interrogate and heal.

Genres: Poetry, Ireland

104 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Meehan studied at University College, Dublin and Eastern Washington University in Spokane, Washington.

She has been awarded The Martin Toonder Award (1995), The Butler Literary Award (1998), and the Denis Devlin Award (2002) for her work.

Reviews

[Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Girl made me nearly cry on the train to Kilkenny.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m very glad I read this. The author’s poems deal with trauma and grieving and particularly in her context of growing up in a low-income section of Dublin (and in a low-income household herself). The poems are powerful and moving and true. I loved them. The images are strong and so is her passion.

[Julia Wellham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite poems:

- Troika
- Prayer Before Starting
- The Book of Changes
- Prayer for the Children of Longing
- Snowdrops
- The Following Message Will Be Deleted From Your Mailbox
- She Didn’t Know She Was Dying But The Poems Did
- Tanka
- Death of a Field

[Kristiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning

[lehnachos ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

New fav poem dropped

[Doralee Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are several long poems and series poems in this collection that are almost novelistic in scope. The poems are varied in length and form, but the long poems predominate and give the book a substance and weight that I am not finding often in contemporary poems. There's a lot to think about in this book and to return to.

[Anna Snader]

“he that’s not busy being born is busy dying” (28).