The Bog Queen Immersion Project: Transformation through Contemplative immersion
A collaborative art project by “Phenomenal Women”Caroline Coyle & Nicole McKenna*
Poem “Paying Homage to the Bog Queen” by Caroline Coyle.
Paper written by Nicole McKenna. Published Postgraduate Journal of Women, Ageing and Media (PGWAM), June 2017, Issue 3ISSN 2055-737X (Online)
ABSTRACT
With reference to Heaney’s Earth Goddess and the reclamation of woman, the Bog Queen video (which is a performance precursor of The Bog Queen Immersion Project), authenticates the spiritual transformation that occurs collectively with the physical experience of immersion. Connection between landscape and poetry is integral to the purification. From a spatial humanities perspective, the exploration of older woman immersed in bog and poetry, offers us a schema to make meaning of the social construction of older women in Irish society.
Link to published paper: – PG WAM Journal 3
KEY WORDS: women, ageing, transformation, bogs, poetry, Heaney, mother earth, Heidegger
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Paying Homage to the Bog Queen
Slink down the boggy layers, Bog Queen
A million tree times over
Immerse yourself
Between the folded sheet memories of oaken secrets
Let the fettle dewdrops lick your legs
Shoots of pea grass warm your toes
Encase your feet in black peat brogues
Your breasts bogcottened
Your hair minnowlike
Crowned with umbilical waterweeds
Bathe yourself in Moons and Moss
Murked humus of pain, drought, famine and sacrificial fruit
Wet peat roots shoots
Banked up frogged canals
Your belly swollen with humic and tannic
Hymning acidic secrets of a million stars
Pay homage to the Bog Queen
Listen for the soul poems
She whispers from the peloid seepage of life.
© Caroline Coyle (2016)
