54. A Recovered Memory of Water by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill - A Friend to Pádraig Ó Tuama

In this episode, poet, theologian and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him – 'Cuimhne An Uisce' / 'A Recovered Memory of Water' by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Paul Muldoon.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet and theologian from Ireland whose poetry and prose has been published widely across Ireland, the US and the UK. He presents Poetry Unbound with On Being, a hugely successful podcast where he explores a single poem. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing, this podcast had more than a million downloads of its first season.

www.padraigotuama.com onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound ​ Pádraig joined The Poetry Exchange online and is in conversation with Poetry Exchange team members, Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer. ​ Many thanks to Gallery Press for granting us permission to share the poem in this capacity. Do visit them for more inspiration here: www.gallerypress.com

Fiona reads the gift reading of 'A Recovered Memory of Water'.

***** Cuimhne An Uisce / A Recovered Memory of Water by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Paul Muldoon

Sometimes when the mermaid’s daughter is in the bathroom cleaning her teeth with a thick brush and baking soda she has the sense the room is filling with water.

It starts at her feet and ankles and slides further and further up over her thighs and hips and waist. In no time it’s up to her oxters. She bends down into it to pick up handtowels and washcloths and all such things as are sodden with it. They all look like seaweed— like those long strands of kelp that used to be called ‘mermaid-hair’ or ‘foxtail.’ Just as suddenly the water recedes and in no time the room’s completely dry again.

A terrible sense of stress is part and parcel of these emotions. At the end of the day she has nothing else to compare it to. She doesn’t have the vocabulary for any of it. At her weekly therapy session she has more than enough to be going on with just to describe this strange phenomenon and to express it properly to the psychiatrist.

She doesn’t have the terminology or any of the points of reference or any word at all that would give the slightest suggestion as to what water might be. ‘A transparent liquid,’ she says, doing as best she can. ‘Right,’ says the therapist, ‘keep going.’ He coaxes and cajoles her towards word-making. She has another run at it. ‘A thin flow,’ she calls it, casting about gingerly in the midst of the words. ‘A shiny film. Dripping stuff. Something wet.’

From 'The Fifty Minute Mermaid', Gallery Press, 2007. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.