Mock orange blossoms whiten against a grey
concrete outhouse. Brambles tap against
its tin roof, corrugated against rain.
Ash sways behind, grown strong from the sapling I planted
in a cracked cinderblock lying against the skeleton
of a wheelbarrow, on the reflex angle between two fields.
A box hedge, large and obstreperous, against its better nature.
Honeysuckle sweetens against a rough low wall,
and loganberry confuses everything by not being sure.
I lie in the light of morning on a green wrought iron bed,
bought to guard against Spanish flu. Brass finials glint
against a white distemper wall. My breath against you.
Mock orange blossoms whiten against a grey concrete outhouse. Brambles tap against its tin roof, corrugated against rain. Ash sways behind, grown strong from the sapling I planted in a cracked cinderblock lying against the skeleton of a wheelbarrow, on the reflex angle between two fields. A box hedge, large and obstreperous, against its better nature. Honeysuckle sweetens against a rough low wall, and loganberry confuses everything by not being sure. I lie in the light of morning on a green wrought iron bed, bought to guard against Spanish flu. Brass finials glint against a white distemper wall. My breath against you.
Derval Tubridy is an Irish poet whose work responds to the intimate traces that bind and blind. Drawing on contemporary events and contested histories, her poems seek to situate the self within those networks that explore just how we live, and why we love.
Born in Bandon, Co. Cork and now based in Dublin, she is a 2026 Irish Writer’s Centre National Mentoring Programme Awardee. Winner of the 2026 The Poetry Business International Poetry Competition, her debut pamphlet I Will Say That will be published by Smith|Doorstop in 2026.
She was Highly Commended in the 2025 Patrick Kavanagh Prize, the 2025 Southword Editor’s Poetry Prize, the 2024 Fool for Poetry Chapbook competition, commended in The Poetry Business 2024 International Poetry competition, and winner of the 2023 Red Line Poetry Competition.
Her poetry has been published in The North, The Stinging Fly, Howl, The Irish Times,The Stony Thursday Poetry Book, The Monster’s Back, Southward and is forthcoming with Banshee.
‘Falcon’ and ‘Leukotheā’ in Southword 50, ed. Patrick Cotter (Cork: Southword Editions, Munster Literature Centre, 2026), pp.17-20.
‘Late’ and ‘Window’ in The North, eds. Ann Sansom and Peter Sansom, 71 (2025), p.103.
‘Transmission’ in The Monster’s Back, ed. Victoria Kennefick (Inniskeen: Patrick Kavanagh Centre, 2025), pp.24-25.
‘Split’ in Howl, eds. Róisín Leggett Bohan and Lauren O’Donovan, 24 (2024), pp.102-103.
‘Spindle’ in The Stony Thursday Book, ed. Victoria Kennefick, no. 20 (Winter 2024), p.3.
‘Eileen Collins’ in The Stinging Fly, ed. Lisa McInerney, poetry ed. Annemarie Ní Churreáin, 50: 2 (2024), pp.18-19.
‘Malevich’, The Irish Times, ed. Gerald Smyth (3 September 2022).
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