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The Darkness of Snow is Frank Ormsby's most varied and versatile
collection to date. It includes three substantial sets of poems
whose themes are refreshingly and sometimes painfully new. One is a
suite of poems - sombre, good-humoured, flippant - about the early
stages of Parkinson's Disease. Ormsby was diagnosed as having the
disease in 2011. Another was prompted by the work of Irish painters
in Normandy, Brittany and Belgium at the end of the 19th century.
There are also further explorations of his boyhood years in
Fermanagh, while poems set in Belfast reflect the aftermath of the
Troubles and celebrate the city's current phase of recovery and
restoration. The book ends with a narrative poem about the trial of
an unnamed tyrant in which we learn about the Accused (as he is
called), about the villagers who have travelled to bear witness to
the atrocities carried out in the village, and about one of the
interpreters, who understands the slipperiness of Truth. The
Darkness of Snow covers work written since Frank Ormsby's
retrospective, Goat's Milk: New & Selected Poems (2015). His
broad range and eye for the particular combine to make this an
exceptional collection. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
Shortlisted for a National Book Circle Critics Award.
Offering an intimate look at the vast influence of Ireland's
extraordinary literary heritage, Hold Open the Door: A
Commemorative Anthology from the Ireland Chair of Poetry highlights
how a new Irish poetry is coming to stand alongside the tradition
from which it has grown - leaving that tradition enriched and
transformed. The Ireland Chair of Poetry Commemorative Anthology
celebrates the 25th anniversary of Seamus Heaney's Nobel Prize
Award, and the subsequent legacy created by the Ireland Chair of
Poetry. This contemporary anthology features original poems and
essays from some of the most exciting new and emerging Irish poets
as they reflect on the formative value of mentorship and creative
exchange, drawing inspiration from renowned poets and artists
across the island of Ireland and beyond. The collection is collated
and edited in collaboration with Frank Ormsby. Frank Ormsby serves
as the current Ireland Chair of Poetry. His most recent collections
include The Rain Barrel (Bloodaxe Books, 2019) and The Darkness of
Snow (Bloodaxe Books, 2017). He has previously been editor of The
Honest Ulsterman and Poetry Ireland Review. In 1992, he received
the Cultural Traditions Award, and in 2002, the Lawrence
O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry.
Frank Ormsby's seventh collection of poems reflects not only the
beauty of the Irish landscape and the sensuous and aesthetic impact
of the small farms among which he grew up, but also the continuing
violence of the 'Troubles'. Close to the surface of mountain and
bogland lie the hidden graves of the 'Disappeared'. Ormsby
continues to make vivid use of the short, resonant poems which were
a striking feature of Goat's Milk and The Darkness of Snow. Here
too the content is often delivered and reinforced through rich,
contrasting images within or between poems: the scarlet flowers
growing in a black kettle, the fuchsia that is both 'redolent of
old battles' or a 'peaceful tapestry in the annals of stone'. Among
the personae of the collection is the obliging father who
volunteers to be buried by his children up to the neck in sand
within sight of but some distance from the 'cold shadow of the
mountain'. The elegiac note that echoes through the poems rarely
darkens the mood. Ormsby's wit and humour, his sly sense of the
absurd and what might be called his affection for the living and
the dead draw the reader into considering the conviction that it is
sometimes 'possible to believe / that joy grows irresistibly at the
roots of everything'.
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The World Unmade
Frank Ormsby
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R550
Discovery Miles 5 500
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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In The World Unmade Frank Ormsby explores the poetic diversity of
Northern Ireland, with a particular focus on the poetry of the
Troubles. He draws on his own experience as editor of a literary
magazine and a number of anthologies. He also explores the
structuring of his next collection, The Tumbling Paddy, which
extends the range of his most recent poems. He retains a sharp eye
for the absurdities and fragilities of history, as well as its
impact on the present. The Ireland Chair of Poetry was established
in 1998 following the award of the Nobel Prize of Literature to
Seamus Heaney and is supported by Queen’s University Belfast,
Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, the Arts Council
of Northern Ireland and the Arts Council 1/An Chomhairle Ealaion.
Other poets in the series include Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, John
Montague, Paul Durcan, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Michael Longley, Harry
Clifton and Paula Meehan.
'... the universal poet, servant of the medium, renewer of the
forms, discoverer of the nugget of harmony in the language of
ourselves.' Seamus Heaney 'He brings to Irish poetry an invaluable
chronicle of mixed allegiances and lost worlds of the ambiguities
of the colony and the defeats of victory. No one else has quite had
his themes; no one else has quite ventured on his enquiries.' Eavan
Boland Edited, with a new introduction, by acclaimed poets Michael
Longley and Frank Ormsby, Selected Poems is a testament to John
Hewitt's remarkable literary legacy, and a celebration of a unique,
compelling and still urgent voice in 20th century Irish poetry.
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