Galway City Poetry Trail - Wolfe Tone Bridge

Moya Cannon's 'Bright City' was unveiled here in 2010 by poet Gerry Smyth. The illustration is by Pádraic Reaney. Moya Cannon is an Irish poet with five published collections, the most recent being Keats Lives (Carcanet Press, Manchester). The mountains, the sea and our primal and enduring responses to the beauty of the endangered earth are the inspiration for many of her poems. Archaeology and geology figure too as gateways to deeper understanding of our mysterious relationship with the natural world and our past. 'Speaking at the unveiling, Smyth described Cannon as having “the kind of contemplative eye that rewards” what Dubliner Thomas Kinsella referred to as “local watchfulness”.Smyth recalled how Dylan Thomas had described a poem as being “like a city” with “many entrances”, and noted that it might be a good idea if gateways to all cities were marked with the words of a poet or writer. The initiative in Galway “reinforces the value of poetry and the need for it”, Smyth said.' (Irish Times 2010)