CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of sexual assault.

What does it mean to be silent in an era of necessary refusal? This question has taken many forms of late, for me, especially following my interview with this episode's featured poet—David McLoghlin, whose third collection of poems, Crash Centre, is just out from Salmon Poetry in Ireland. To begin the book, David employs an epigraph, a Latin proverb: “He who is silent is taken to agree; he ought to have spoken when he was able to.” As a sexual assault survivor, this epigraph works hard on behalf of David's poetry. First, let’s look at the facts: over 90% of sexual assault victims are women. Only 30% of sexual assault crimes are reported to legal authorities; 1 in 5 women in college are sexually assault and 1 in 16 of men are. It seems we are surrounded on all sides by a ubiquitous patriarchal violence, by genocide, extractive economy, et cetera, so…what does it mean to be silent—does it imply complicity, does it mean you’re not doing anything or does it mean you don’t know what to do?

David’s own assault was perpetrated by a man of power, at that, a religiously-sanctioned man of power. The last line of one of the poems you will hear David read in this episode—’Hostage Walk’—goes: “No one asked: where has David gone?” As trauma goes, a person is here and not here. But, you'll hear David, here, read a handful of poems from Crash Centre and we will discuss his life in Cork, his love of being a father, and his poetics. My hope is that our conversation will hold a kind of healing space for other victims/survivors and I am very grateful to listeners out there. Learn more at DavidMcLoghlin.com, and get a copy of Crash Centre at SalmonPoetry.com or at your local bookstore.

All poems are performed by David McLoghlin and all the author’s poems discussed are published in Crash Centre (Salmon Poetry, 2024). The poems are the property of the author(s) and the publisher(s) listed. The song played during the introduction is “Sunday Afternoon” and is performed by The True Loves. Please support their work.

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