Julie Irigaray - The Argentinian Rugby Women (France)

from #BreakTheBias by Various

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about

Julie Irigaray is a French Basque poet whose début poetry pamphlet 'Whalers, Witches and Gauchos' was published by Nine Pens in 2021. Her poems have appeared internationally (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Singapore and South Korea) in The Rialto, Ambit and Magma. She was commended in the 2020 Ambit Magazine Poetry Prize; and selected as one of the 50 Best New British and Irish Poets 2018 (Eyewear Publishing), among other prizes.

Website: www.julieirigaray.com
Instagram: julie_irigaray
Twitter: @IrigarayJulie

lyrics

THE ARGENTINIAN RUGBY WOMEN

Defeat is certain.
But the Argentinian rugby women
put their minds
to being defeated with honour.

The terraces are filled only with relatives,
the match broadcast on a channel no one watches –
but the Argentinian mothers stand up and yell,
wave the national flag.

They’ve followed their daughters
to the other side of the world
knowing they wouldn’t get past the first round.

The Argentinian players display
el Sol de Mayo on their scrum caps
– their opponents tackle them without pity,
crushing them into the sludge.

The Argentinian mothers hold up:
they’ve dragged their husbands along,
the same men who’d refused to allow their daughters
to practise such a degrading sport.

The Argentinian mothers too
had disapproved at first.
Now they scream from the stand.

credits

from #BreakTheBias, released March 8, 2022
CREDITS:'The Argentinian Rugby Women' is taken from the collection Whalers, Witches and Gauchos (Nine Pens, 2021).

Purchase at ninepens.co.uk/julie-irigaray