Home and Abroad: Poems

Abstract

Home and Abroad is a poetry collection that primarily examines photographs through narrative, ekphrasis, and poetry as a form of witness. It explores thirty photographs taken by Rose Shaw of farmhands in Northern Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th century that are archived in Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra, County Down, Northern Ireland. Rose Shaw was a governess from Bath, England who worked as a nanny for the Gledstanes in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

This collection broadens to include poetry that incorporates a personal and cultural perspective outside Rose Shaw’s photographs. Home and Abroad examines individual narratives and how they influence each other. The poems carefully observe how personal experiences can inform a response and add meaning in a larger context.