Poetry & Water: A Book Tour through Ireland

To launch the publication of Thin Matter, Alifair Skebe went on a motocross book tour of Ireland, reading at various sites associated with nature and the ancient, indigenous cultures of each region of Ireland. The book is very much aligned with the intersectionality of the metaphysical with natural spaces and natural imagery. This post is a chronicle of the readings at those spaces that resonate poetry through water, integrally attached to the ancient, sacred feminine.

Reading at the protected, ancient Druidic gardens at Blarney Castle.

Reading, ahem, yelling over the Torc Waterfall at Killarney National Forest
in the beginnings of a downpour.

Reading in the winds at the top of O'Brien's Tower at the Cliffs of Moher in the Burren off the Atlantic Coast--
7 prepositional phrases at once!

Reading at the Cliffs of Moher, otherwise known to we, 'mericans,
and GenXers grown up on The Princess Bride as the "Cliffs of Insanity!!!"  

Reading in the rain at Poulnabrone, the Burren,
a Neolithic portal tomb on ground fashioned by glacial melt

Reading over the waterfalls on the Letterfrack Poetry Trail
in the Connemara National Forest, Connacht, Ireland.

Reading at WhiteRock Beach on the Celtic Sea just South of Dublin.

It is perhaps fitting, that the book was launched in these spaces, not merely for their beauty and sacredness to ancient peoples. Alifair's last name Skebe, of Slovenian-Czech ancestry, belies her maternal Murphy-Renfroe, or Irish-Scotch heritage. Additionally, she has studied ancient female religions for many years, and Thin Matter resonates from the place of the sacred feminine, the divine. Such imagery and vitality is present in the very landscape of Ireland.