Boyne Berries and Kintsugi

According to Wikipedia "Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise."

It has become a fashionable term, taken up by some self-help and popular psychology gurus but the basic idea is as old as the hills and worldwide. I remember when you could buy pot menders to fix metal containers.

Boyne Berries 26 will be launched on Thursday, 24th October at 8 pm in The Castle Arch Hotel, Trim. Co Meath and the cover has a great image by Rory O'Sullivan on the topic. The launch will be performed by poet Jean O'Brien who I understand has a poem on Kintsugi included.

A special feature of the issue is the inclusion of the poems shortlisted for Trim Poetry Competition 2019. Contributors to Boyne Berries 26 will read on the night. All welcome. Tea and coffee served.

I wrote a poem called Kintsugi in response to a prompt from Sophie in our online workshop in Spring 2017. It was then published in the anthology Poems to Keep edited by Janice Dempsey in 2017.

Kintsugi 

Her scribbled prescription was a pledge
not of cure but easement,
like that cardboard wedge
under our dining room table
or the taped glasses of the shopkeeper
who dished out aspirin in Coolaney.

Waiting in the pharmacy I considered
mother’s dentures, grandad’s truss,
the wooden hand great grandfather wore,
all the crucial repairs we carry with us,
sticking plasters on our cracks
patches on our punctures, our fractures
held together by judicious mending,
golden joinery, the beauty in broken things.

Michael Farry