Winooski (B)

Publication Instance Details #571

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	Indigenous Rights (incl. culture & language) HR & Colonisation/Colonial Legacies Genocide
War / Genocide Referenced	Genocide: Genocide of indigenous people in USA (pre 20th century)
Irish Context	Irish Language/Culture Specific Irish place or place-name mentioned
Languages	English
Original Language	Irish
Original Poem	Winooski
Original Author	Liam Ó Muirthile
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	Poem in which the poet uses the contested name for the Burlington/Onion/Winooski River in Vermont as an illustration of the erosion of the Native American tribes of the place, as well as the erosion of the Irish language itself. Both the language of the people of the river, and the Irish language, will have a similar fate. The poem is also about the poet-speaker of the poem and his relationship with Greg Delanty, a fellow Cork man and poet, who wrote in English, and who now resides in Vermont, the location of the contested river in this poem. The name 'Winooski' means 'onion', and so the river was called 'Onion River'. The poem ends with the speaker acknowledging that the fate of the language of the Native tribes of the place will be the same as the fate of his own language as well.