Victoria Kennefick: the sensitive heart
Dr. Victoria Kennefick [https://www.victoriakennefick.com/] is a writer, poet, editor and teacher who lives in Tralee, Co. Kerry (Ireland). She completed a PhD in Irish and American Literature at University College Cork and was a Fulbright Scholar at Emory University. Her debut collection, Eat or We Both Starve (Carcanet Press, 2021), won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize and the Dalkey Book Festival Emerging Writer of the Year Award. It was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Costa Poetry Book Award, Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry and the Butler Literary Prize. Her second collection, Egg/Shell (Carcanet Press, 2024) was a Poetry Book Society Choice for Spring 2024 and won the Farmgate Café National Poetry Prize 2025. She was the 2025 Arts Council of Ireland/Trinity College Dublin Writer Fellow.
If you’re reading this somewhere other than Substack, these notes will be abridged and photos will not appear. Join the Ask the Poet Substack (kathrynpetruccelli.substack.com) for complete show notes with images, correct poetry formatting, and regular notices of new episodes.
Another quick note: The formatting of Dana Levin’s poem from Episode 7 [https://kathrynpetruccelli.substack.com/p/dana-levin-poetry-as-an-endurance] was incorrect and now has been corrected.
I cannot live with You – It would be Life – And Life is over there – Behind the Shelf
The Sexton keeps the Key to – Putting upOur Life – His Porcelain – Like a Cup –
Discarded of the Housewife – Quaint – or Broke – A newer Sevres pleases – Old Ones crack –
I could not die – with You – For One must waitTo shut the Other’s Gaze down – You – could not –
And I – could I stand byAnd see You – freeze – Without my Right of Frost – Death’s privilege?
Nor could I rise – with You – Because Your FaceWould put out Jesus’ – That New Grace
Glow plain – and foreignOn my homesick Eye – Except that You than HeShone closer by –
They’d judge Us – How – For You – served Heaven – You know,Or sought to – I could not –
Because You saturated Sight – And I had no more EyesFor sordid excellenceAs Paradise
And were You lost, I would be – Though My NameRang loudestOn the Heavenly fame –
And were You – saved – And I – condemned to beWhere You were not – That self – were Hell to Me –
So We must meet apart – You there – I – here – With just the Door ajarThat Oceans are – and Prayer – And that White Sustenance – Despair –
Valentine Poem for my ValentineVictoria Kennefick
Surely by now, you must be familiarwith my heart’s alarming habits – how itexpands beyond the parameters of its rusty cage.How lumps of its slick muscle push throughthe bars in such an unsightly manner – all shinyand hot. I am ashamed of its size and hungeryet still try to offer you its bloody chambers.At times, I quickly shove it in your pocket or satchelwhen you’re not looking. Others, I sneak itinto your tin cigarette box, or lob it into the bootof your car as you drive away from me back to the city(What am I to do?). Sometimes, I even manageto balance it on the tiny freckle tuckedinto the palm of your hand. I’ve secreted itinto envelopes, Friday night dinners, and maybe eveninto poems where it thumps clumsily behindtangible descriptions trying to mask its ooze and bulk.I have tried to hide the lumbering oaf that is my heart, like this –thinking you would find it and see how careless I am with it.How free. Oh! What a grift – because here I must come clean.I have wanted to tell you how desiccated it was.How it had been shrunk to the size of a screw top –dry and crumbling – I never, ever wanted to use it again.Do you understand? I thought I was dead and my pulsethe sound of pebbles caving in on my chest like a grave.I didn’t think it would be painful letting it grow againto the size of the whole world, that it would become a planetlike this, that it would be where you live.
People & concepts mentioned:
The Master Letters [https://www.emilydickinsonmuseum.org/roomitem/master-letters/]
Victoria’s mention of Walt Whitman [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/walt-whitman] “shouting at the traffic”perhaps came from here: “Beat! beat! drums!--blow! bugles! blow! / Over the traffic of cities--over the rumble of wheels in the streets…” (from “Beat! Beat! Drums!”)
I make reference to the idea that Emily’s brother Austin “wanted to be planting trees.” From emilydickinsonmuseum.org: “Emily Dickinson came from a family of nature lovers. Her mother, Emily Norcross, was an avid gardener who passed on her skills to her daughters, Emily and Lavinia. The poet’s brother Austin shared her extensive knowledge of and delight in the natural world. While a student at Amherst College, Austin’s life-long interest in landscape design was sparked by the lectures of Edward Hitchcock about the careful landscaping of European cities and towns. As Treasurer of Amherst College (1873-1895), Austin Dickinson took particular pleasure in landscaping of the College grounds, cultivating at the same time a close relationship with prominent landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. He later led the effort to drain and beautify the town common, and spearheaded the drive to form a new style of park-like cemetery in Amherst after the fashion of Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.”
Victoria mentions Seamus Heaney [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/seamus-heaney]’s first book, Death of a Naturalist, and the iconic Heaney poem “Digging [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging]”
The “reverend” Victoria refers to would be Charles Wadsworth, whom Dickinson met in her one venture outside the state of Massachusetts in 1855 where he was preaching in Philadelphia. She apparently fell quite hard for him and there’s some evidence (an unannounced visit to the Homestead etc.) that the feeling was mutual. However, he was already married. Some believe Wadsworth may be the “master” of the Master Letters.
(W.B.) Yeats [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats]
(William) Wordsworth [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth]
“Learning Cert” refers to the final exams required of secondary school students in Ireland.
(Patrick) Kavanaugh [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/patrick-kavanagh]
Sylvia Plath [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sylvia-plath]
Other Dickinson poems mentioned:
“Faith” is a fine inventionFor Gentlemen who see!But Microscopes are prudentIn an Emergency!
Recorded February 12, 2026.
Thank you for taking the time to repost, review, comment, and share!
New workshop opportunity:
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kathrynpetruccelli.substack.com/subscribe [https://kathrynpetruccelli.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]
