Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Poem:
WHAT
IS RED ?
By Mary O’Neill
The poet’s background
Mary Devenport O'Neill (3 August 1879 – 1967) was an Irish poet and dramatist. She
was born in Loughrea, County Galway , Ireland in 1879. From 1898-1903 she studied teaching
at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (the present-day National College of Art, Dublin).
When she was fifty, she published a collection of poetry Prometheus and Other Poems
(London: Jonathan Cape 1929) which consists of thirty-three lyric poems, four "dream poems",
one long poem, and a verse-play. This was the first collection of poetry published by an Irish
poet, besides Yeats, which could be considered modernist . She is one of a small number of
known early 20th century Irish modernist women poets. One of her most popular books,
''Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Color,'' illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, was
published by Doubleday in 1961 and printed in several languages. In it, Mrs. O'Neill identified
and interpreted the most familiar colours through verse. The book was used as a supplementary
text in schools in the United States and abroad.
What is Red?
Red is sunset
Red is a sunburn
Sometimes red
9
Is a red, red, rose.
Red is a brick
Red is hotness
Fire-cracker, fire-engine
Fire-flicker red–
A Valentine heart.
The trimmings on
A circus cart.
Red is a lipstick
Red is a shout
Red is a signal
Rubber ball.
10
Red is the giantest
Colour of all.
Red is a show-off,
No doubt about it -