I was stupidly thrilled while reading my e-newsletter from @elcultural to find the word "letraheridos" (more or less "people hurt by letters") to describe what English might call #bibliophiles or #literature lovers—and now I'm wondering if the origins of this newer term have anything to do with #Auden declaring #Yeats was hurt into #poetry ... Wherever it came from, I'm declaring it the best word I've heard in ages.
Sinead O’Connor Danced on the Edge of the Dark All Her Life
Auden wrote of Yeats, “Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.” Cruel Ireland hurt Ms. O’Connor into song. She called Ireland a theocracy. She was furious that in a country that had supposedly fought for and won its freedom, women and children were so silenced and disempowered. She understood and had experienced pain, neglect and injustice and sang for those who also knew these things.
One of the best things about time away in Sligo is that you get to meet W.B. Yeats.
So there's a series of locations associated with him and the Sligo landscape that inspired his poetry. This poem was written on a plate at the start of Slishwood forest walk. It was beautifully embedded into a metal artwork.
'Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand."