''Pomes Penyeach'' is a collection of thirteen short poems written by
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
.
Overview
''Pomes Penyeach'' was written over a 20-year period, from 1904 to 1924, and originally published on 7 July 1927 by
Shakespeare and Company, for the price of one shilling (twelve pennies) or twelve francs. The title is a play on "poems" and ''pommes'' (the French word for apples) which are here offered at "a penny each" in either currency. It was the custom for Irish tradespeople of the time to offer their customers a "tilly" (in Irish, ''tuilleadh'') or extra serving – just as English bakers had developed the tradition of the "
baker's dozen
A dozen (commonly abbreviated doz or dz) is a grouping of twelve.
The dozen may be one of the earliest primitive integer groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the Moon, or months, in a cycle of the Sun, or yea ...
", offering thirteen loaves instead of twelve. The first poem of ''Pomes Penyeach'' is entitled "Tilly" and represents the bonus offering of this penny-a-poem collection. (The poem was originally entitled "Cabra", after the
Cabra district of Dublin where Joyce was living at the time of his mother's death.)
The poems were initially rejected for publication by
Ezra Pound. Although paid scant attention on its initial publication, this slender volume (which contains fewer than 1000 words in total) has proven surprisingly durable, and a number of its poems (particularly "Tilly", "A flower given to my daughter", "On the beach at Fontana", and "Bahnhofstrasse") continue to appear in anthologies to this day.
[ ]Seamus Heaney
Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. and Ted Hughes
Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...
, for example, include "Tilly", "On the beach at Fontana" and "A flower given to my daughter" in their popular anthology, ''The Rattlebag''.
''Pomes Penyeach'' contains a number of Joycean
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
s ("rosefrail", "moongrey" and "sindark", for example) created by melding two words into a new compound. The word "love" appears thirteen times in this collection of thirteen short poems (and the word "heart" appears almost as frequently) in a variety of contexts. Sometimes
romantic love
Romance or romantic love is a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person, and the courtship behaviors undertaken by an individual to express those overall feelings and resultant emotions.
The ''Wiley Blackwell Ency ...
is intended, in tones that vary from sentimental or nostalgic ("O sighing grasses,/ Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn!") to scathing ("They mouth love's language. Gnash/ The thirteen teeth/ Your lean jaws grin with"). Yet at its best Joyce's poetry achieves, like his prose, a sense of vitality and loving compassion. ("From whining wind and colder/ Grey sea I wrap him warm/ And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder/ And boyish arm. // Around us fear, descending/ Darkness of fear above/ And in my heart how deep unending/ Ache of love!")
Contents
The contents of ''Pomes Penyeach'' are listed below, with the date and place of each composition:
"Tilly" (Dublin, 1904; originally known as "Cabra")
"Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba" (
Trieste
Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...
, 1912)
"A Flower Given to My Daughter" (Trieste, 1913)
"She Weeps over Rahoon" (Trieste, 1913)
"Tutto è sciolto" (Trieste, 13 July 1914)
"On the Beach at Fontana" (Trieste, 1914)
"Simples" (Trieste, 1914)
"Flood" (Trieste, 1915)
"Nightpiece" (Trieste, 22 January 1915)
"Alone" (Zurich, 1916)
"A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight" (Zurich, 1917)
"Bahnhofstrasse" (Zurich, 1918)
"A Prayer" (Paris, 1924)
References
External links
* Full text of
Pomes Penyeach'
{{James Joyce
1927 poetry books
Irish poetry collections
Poetry by James Joyce