Kerry Hardie has published six collections of poetry, the most recent of which is The ash and the oak and the wild cherry tree. Her Selected poems have been published by Gallery Press, Ireland, and Bloodaxe, UK, in March. Her next collection, The zebra stood in the night is due from Bloodaxe in October of this year. She has also published two novels and is working on a third. She has won many prizes, including the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry, University of St Thomas, Minnesota; the Michael Hartnett Award; and the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Award for Poetry.

Aftermath

Essay and Poems

The essay and the sequence of poems that follow were written after the death in Delhi, India, of my youngest brother, Paddy Jolley in January 2012. Paddy was a photographer and a film-maker. He was working on a version of Finnegan’s Wake at the time of his death from a heart attack at the age of just 47. His partner, Lu Thornely and their two infant sons, Ned and Thomas, had been staying with her cousin and his family in Sri Lanka. Paddy was cremated in Delhi in accordance with Hindu funeral rites. The essay is a meditation on grief and is not specific to my brother’s death. The poems are mostly addressed to him personally. They are really one long poem, but they are separated out to help the reader to understand the events behind them. They are dedicated to Lu and the children who have helped to fill the empty space left by Paddy’s death.