Point of View

“Irish Poetry” is told from the first-person point of view using the pronoun I: “I heard the unambiguous scrape of spackling” (Line 2). Unusually for contemporary poetry, the first-person speaker is not a reflection of the poet themself; here, they are an external character manufactured from patchwork fragments of traditional Irish poetry. Although the speaker is recounting their own experience, the focus of the poem is not on them but on the natural world around them. The second stanza uses no first-person pronouns at all, but instead describes the world as the speaker sees it. In the third and fourth stanzas, the speaker’s presence is minimal. Rather than focusing on a specific person, the poet uses the first-person speaker as a lens through which they introduce the reader to this idyllic, romanticized Irish landscape.

Language and Meaning

“Irish Poetry” intentionally uses obscure and complex word...