Why Anne Enright chose this poem
The movement in Among School Children into complexity was a revelation, when I was a schoolchild myself, of what a poem might do that prose could not. But the poem that held me tranced was Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop. This was something I could almost understand: Jane’s pride in the face of shame, her wit and transgressive rage. Of course, I did not understand it at all, which was perhaps just as well.
Anne Enright is the laureate for Irish fiction. Her latest novel, The Green Road, is published by Jonathan Cape
Crazy Jane talks with the Bishop
I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
‘Those breasts are flat and fallen now
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.’
‘Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,’ I cried.
‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart’s pride.
‘A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.’
