Damien Donnelly and Eat the Storms
In his new chapbook Eat the Storms, poet Damien Donnelly has staked a solid claim to being the poet of color. Each of the 20 poems is shaped by a color or shades of a color — yellow, scarlet, purple, black, ruby, red, cerulean, blue, gray, brown, gold, and green.
I’ve long associated color with emotions and feelings (feeling blue, red with embarrassment, green with envy), but the poems go well beyond only the emotional. They prompted me to look at the idea of color, and what color can mean beyond the emotional. I discovered there’s an entire psychology of color, one that adds considerable layers of nuance and understanding to what Donnelly conveys in his poetry.
Consider the color blue. It’s the color denoting trust and responsibility. We all want a friend who’s “true blue,” someone (or even something) we know we can depend upon for counsel in both good times and times of crisis. With that understanding of what the color can mean, now read Donnelly’s “Shades of Blue.”
Shades of Blue
I hear you calling
in shades of blue
from the extremities
of a distance my arm’s reach
can never cover.
I hear you calling
in shades of blue,
your concern comes in currents
across the continents,
in those cold corners
when I question creation
and my position within it.
I hear you calling
in shades of blue,
only one born to know no origins
can only discern
in these days
that demand ties
that have not been well tethered.
The meaning of “blue” in the poem can also be understood in the more traditional sense of “feeling blue,” as in in down or depressed. And that shifts the entire meaning of the poem, focusing on the “you” instead of the “I.”
These potentially multiple meanings extend across the chapbook (what’s called a “pamphlet” in Ireland and Britain). The use of color plunges us into shades of possible meanings, different ways to read the poems, and different perspectives.
Damien Donnelly
Eat the Storms is Donnelly’s debut poetry collection. His poems have been featured in numerous anthologies, collections, online sites, and journals, including Second Chance from Original Writing, Body Horror Anthology from Gehenna and Hinnom, Nous Sommes Paris from Eyewear Publishing, The Runt Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, Barren Magazine, and Fahmidan Journal, and many others. His poetry and short stories have won a number of awards and recognitions. He lives in Ireland and is working on a novel.
If you like to read about the grey wings of winter, ruby red lies, purple clouds, cerulean skies, the golden haze of mornings, and the yellow light of sunrise, and like to discover multiple meanings and layers of insight, then consider Eat the Storms. It is a small, sparkling yellow gem of a collection, with yellow being the “the color of the mind and intellect.”
Photo by Vincent Desjardins, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.
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How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.
“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”
—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
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