<\/font><\/p>\n
\na poem by Anamaría Crowe Serrano<\/p>\n
Ó Bhéal<\/em><\/b><\/p>\n for the Ó Bhéal audience in Cork – the regulars and irregulars<\/i><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n what is the word the beauty of the word without that struggle the word, once learned even the single word so much individuality who cares what a noun speech will forge its path <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Listen to the recorded live version while you read … [audio:O Bheal – Anamaria Crowe Serrano.mp3] a poem by Anamaría Crowe Serrano Ó Bhéal for the Ó Bhéal audience in Cork – the regulars and irregulars what is the word if not its mouth open closed stretched pursed the lips-teeth-tongue-palate-ridge quintet and the little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":19,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-105","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/105\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.obheal.ie\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nif not its mouth
\nopen
\nclosed
\nstretched pursed
\nthe lips-teeth-tongue-palate-ridge quintet
\nand the little squiggly bit
\ndangling at the back
\nof your throat
\ngood for Spanish words like jengibre
\nand even simple English words
\nlike hjello, hjow are you<\/em>?
\nair, funnelling
\nfrom lungs through larynx
\nto fill the mouth
\nwith all those things you want to say
\n ó bhéal<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nslithering
\ninto consciousness from
\nnada into dada
\nembryonic fission
\nsplitting morph
\nand eme, then merging
\ninto multi-syllababble
\ntumbling with its own
\nmomentum towards
\nintelligible speech
\n ó bhéal<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
\nto be heard
\nhow would we reveal
\nthe workings of the psyche
\nthe splintered contradiction
\nof unspoken word
\nsynaptic between thought and
\narticulation
\nagglutinating silence
\nwith the spectre of a sound
\na hum, a murmur, gurgle, giggle
\ncough, a plosive genie
\npuffed into the air
\nwith fricatives confused around it
\nshitting flipping fecked expletives
\nflustering the aaaaah… the
\nooooOOoooo the frightened eeeeee!
\nof vowels voiced
\n ó bhéal<\/i><\/b>
\nglottic, gloopy
\nstartled by the jams and crashes
\nthe trafficking of letters
\nin the buccal cavity <\/p>\n
\nmuddles through a medley
\nof vibrations
\nplucks the cords
\nthat build up to the quiet word
\nthe quick word, the good word
\nthe weasel word wrestling
\nwith an focal fíor
\n ó bhéal<\/i><\/b>,
\npalabrota on parole, parola
\nchiave for that crossword
\nand the buzzword – in other words
\na magic word, mot juste
\ni giri-giochi di parole
\nand an focal deireanach
\nthat takes the words
\nright out of your mouth<\/p>\n
\ncan sing
\nwhen it’s ó bhéal<\/i><\/b>
\n pipistrello
\n suaimhneas
\n ksi\u0105\u017cka
\nand the word
\nyou give when you give
\nyour word – parole d’honneur –
\nis especially melodious
\nto the ear
\nnot like the single word as in
\nI want a word <\/font> with you
\nthere’s no melody in that one
\nthat’s just an understatement
\nmorbidly bulldozing
\nthrough your self-esteem<\/p>\n
\nin the flowery speak
\nof some folk, their mouth
\nsui generis
\nperennially in bloom
\npushing up from the undergrowth
\nmercurial quirky weedy words
\n ó bhéal<\/b><\/i>
\nthat feed unwitting wit and foul
\npoor mrs. malaprop
\nwith clangers, blunders, gaffs
\nand howlers <\/p>\n
\n or a continent is? You don’t need
\n to know the difference
\n between additives and syllables
\n to string a sentence together <\/p>\n
\nmaster megalithic gamuts
\nof palaver
\nloud and clear
\nin tandem with the listening ear
\nthe audience
\n you
\n usted
\n tusa
\n pa\u00f1stwo
\n sibhse go léir
\nthe word hammers home
\nspirals the air
\nchochlear and muscley
\nalive-alive-o
\nnourishes a thought
\na cog that feeds
\nthe sparks and churns the neurons
\nturning word salads
\ninto proper food for thought
\nwordy wisdom
\nsolidarity, global in its scope
\nwhether spoken whispered shouted sung
\nit’s ours
\n\u00e0 nous e tutti noi
\nlinking us in an embrace
\nthat filters into far-flung corners
\nof the heart
\nwhen we communicate
\n ó bhéal<\/b><\/i>
\n
\n
\nAnamaría Crowe Serrano<\/strong> is Irish and lives in Dublin with her family. She is currently a freelance translator and teacher of the Spanish language. She has published several translations of poetry including Valerio Magrelli’s Instructions on How to Read a Newspaper <\/em>(Chelsea Editions, 2008). Other work includes a collection of short stories, Dall’altra parte<\/em> (Leconte, Rome, 2003), a one-act play, The Interpreter<\/em> (Delta3 Edizioni, 2003), and a collection of poems, Paso Doble<\/em>, (Empiria, Rome, 2006) written as a poetic dialogue with the Italian poet Annamaria Ferramosca. Her first full length collection of poetry, Femispheres<\/em>, was published by Shearsman, UK, in March 2008.<\/p>\n