‘Of Blood and Bone’: Thomas Kinsella and the Political Poem

This article explores the reception history and formal properties of Thomas Kinsella’s 1972 poem, Butcher’s Dozen, written in response to Bloody Sunday. It examines how the poem’s reception follows debates in the Irish poetry scene about poetry and politics and how Kinsella transforms journalistic discourse about Bloody Sunday. The article investigates his response to a political atrocity by examining the poem’s formal antecedents and poetic choices, arguing that the poem participates in a tradition of Irish and British political poetry. Analysis of the poem focuses on the emotions roused, the genre of the poem, the form, its portrayal and endorsement of political beliefs, its balance and its relationship to time. The article also scrutinizes newspapers reports and eyewitness accounts of Bloody Sunday, the British government’s Widgery report, debates from the Irish parliament’s archives, and the poem’s immediate reception in newspapers and magazines.