document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Follow @john_self Yes Rooms of Dust a great book indeed brought back loads of memory to our family, You might like to have a look here and also show your Dad Michael. I am Engish and deeply ashamed of what my country did to Ireland then. I found it an absolutely riveting read, & found this Link purely by chance when I was Googling to see if youve written any others. (LogOut/ Ghost Train won the Forward Poetry Prize in 1995 when it was published; his next collection, Downriver (2001) repeated the feat; and in a hat-trick the Toon Army tsunami would be proud of, his latestThe Drowned Book (2007) took both the Forward Prize and, this week, the T.S. Toward the end, the moving waterways are brought overground and replaced by railways a manmade development which OBrien can endorse and the feeling is carefully optimistic; allowing, of course, for the odd journey to hell. If you dug a hole in your back garden, it would slowly fill with water. And absolutely out of luck. Pretty soon, when the presses crank up for a new OBrien collection, all the other poets in the land will keep their powder dry till next year. He often talks of his childhood in the bulildings. However I dont find much poetry that I actually like. Poet Sean O'Brien was born in London, England, on 19 December 1952 and grew up in Hull. Sean O'Brien. (LogOut/ Bob Young, http://www.dublin.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php?28-Harold-s-Cross-Ranelagh-Rathgar-Rathmines-Terenure. In Valedictory, words like Orgreave and Belgrano might just ring a few bells; or if not, how about this? Sadly, I dont think I like the sound of OBrien either the water stuff is appealing while the political is offputting. This is done both with artful solemnity (Arcadia) and playfully, where Timor Mortis finds OBrien at his funniest on the indivisibility of humankind when it comes to condemnation: The wonks who work the cutting edge, He left Dublin when he was fourteen, married my mum and had me when he was nineteen. Who staffed her army of the night: Eliot prize. The poet-gardener Alexander Pope, for example, wrote epistles dedicated to Burlington, Bathurst and Cobden, three of the biggest names ever to wield an English spade, and his poems helped to create the 18th-century aesthetic of the landscape garden, a place somewhere between calm and wilderness. (LogOut/ UK poet Sean O'Brien reads a selection of poems from his tenth collection, It Says Here, published by Picador Pan Macmillan on 3 September 2020'It is the bri. i couldnt put it down. Rewritten. Wide, dark waters that grow in the telling, X. just finished rooms of dust. My father Michael Grimes comes from Rathmines and lived in Mount Pleasant Buildings. "I'm a pluviophile," he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle. Is as secretive as thought. Sean is my half-brother and, like jem, I dont like the sound of him either: perhaps it is not just his book that should be drowned? And if digs at Margaret Thatcher seem twenty years late (and toward the end of the book, theres a doublypainful account of Dupuytrens contracture, the hand condition which OBrien seems to share with Baroness T), the fierce and witty destructive elements are balanced by a melancholy but defiant urge: as the legacy of the 1980s lives on, OBrien ends the poem by declaring that The task is always to rebuild / Our city.. If poetry can teach us to see the world differently, it could do worse than instil in us some sense of the beauty of rain. Are you planning to write a follow up to Rooms of Dust? I am haunted by the idea of the pubs in the old part of the city having their cellars flooded, and I'm intrigued by the idea that the floodwater might somehow insinuate itself into the beer.". it is not so freely available as one might like to think. This means I do have experience of Sean OBrien, mainly through his earlier collection Ghost Train, which ranged fromsubversive homage to MacNeices Autumn Journal in Somebody Else, (You live here on the citys edge / Among back lanes and stable blocks / From which you glimpse the allegations / Of the gardening bourgeoisie that all is well)to a sensitive, sharp portrayal of football (a subject in which I thought I had no interest) in Autumn Begins at St Jamess Park, Newcastle.. It is reassuring that poetry of this quality is still being written. - Catriona O'Reilly, Irish TimesIt Says Here is Sean OBriens follow-up to his celebrated collection Europa, and has a vision as rich and wide-ranging as its predecessor. Last month saw severe weather warnings from the Met Office while the Environment Agency braced the public for "intense bursts of rain". An absolutely novel crime My memoir, Rooms of Dust, (out of print but available from me) tells of duck ponds in Hull and mittens worn on a wet day in Dublin when I said my final farewell to our Dad, the runaway poet of the Irish Free State Army. Just think, if Im not found in time, Will be the major threat. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Join Zeno, Zog and Baudelaire Can rake in flogging dope and tanks: Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Screaming, weeping, brave as fuck The result is a stirring, illuminating document of a time of immense societal flux and upheaval by one of our finest poets and most insightful cultural commentators.https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/sean-obrien/1934 Immanuel Kant and Percy Sledge, wonderful! Here, OBrien charts a psycho-geographic journey through the English countryside and the haunted precincts of London, mapping a labyrinth of love, madness and lost history. "It's a mixture of a real park in Hull, called Pearson Park, with some changes made for my own purposes." Strange: no one nowadays admits But thanks for sharing, its good to get a peek inside the covers of a prize winner. Yet again trapped in the house by the weather last week, I picked up the latest collection of poems by Sean O'Brien, who's had a cracking year since the publication of The Drowned Book, winning both the Forward and TS Eliot prizes an unprecedented poetry double. Where the river road carries us now. Chin up, Sean, even if you do join Captain Nemo, Guildenstern / And suchlike planks booked in to burn, at least youve cleaned up at the poetry awards. Some with slow piano wire, Thank you for opportunity to comment. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. I absolutely loved your book Sarah it teased out memories of my emotions, I felt would drown me, when I was a child and I was bitterly disappointed you did not manage to bring a comforting and satisfying conclusion to your heartache. His poem "Arcadia", for example, describes a journey in a rowing boat across a lake in a fantastical garden with a touch of mythical strangeness. Then I might perpetrate You'd think that gardeners, at least, could see this as a blessing, but there's been all kinds of horticultural problems as a result of waterlogging. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? I am just reading your book Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it. The Drowned Bookby Sean O'Brien80pp, Picador, 8.99. And when I was little, parts of the city would flood. He has a new family now. He was educated at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and studied as a postgraduate at the universities of Birmingham, Hull and Leeds, where he gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Education. There are elegies for friends and fellow poets; paranoiac, brooding pastorals; other poems lay bare the maddening trials of a historically literate mind as it attempts to navigate a world gone post-content, post-intellectual, and at times post-memory. It hasnt happened yet The Calm. "There is something about the rain," he says, "that is both heart-breaking and consoling.". To voting in the gang of shits With Peter Pan, the Golden Horde, O'Brien is a man who embraces the rain especially rainy gardens, which feature time and again in his poems. A whole summer goes past where it never stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during mealtimes and the football results. It's a collection that is convincing enough to make me wonder whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens. Of course, if you venture out, you'll get soaked. "I grew up in Hull, which was built on a flood plain. Ive just finished reading your book Sarah, it might be out of print, but its still available at my local Library. If so, I look forward to reading it. I felt your pain, I cried your tears and could not put your book down. Every geranium has mildew; every pear tree, sooty mould. Than asset-stripping mountebanks For in our time the future tense Change). "Praise of a Rainy Country", meanwhile, written in memory of the Northern writer Julia Darling, whose premature death touched O'Brien personally, takes place in a drenched world with something of the 1970s about it. With so many childhood memories touched by water, O'Brien began to compile a collection, little knowing it would end up being published in a year that saw such an abundance of rain. All travellers not yet on board Branch libraries and playing fields #yangtzebysarahhowe#yangtzepoem#yangtzepoemsummaryinmalayalam#yangtzemalayalamsumary#yangtzemalayalam#yangtzesummary#yangtze#yangtzesummaryinmalayalam#sarahhowe Poetry has succeeding in reshaping gardening taste before. HI Jacqueline Pretty soon, when the presses crank up for a new O'Brien collection, all the other poets in the land will keep their powder dry till next year. I recognise the yearning for your father and hope my daughter will read your book. Gerry Wardle. As conscripts of le grand nowhere I enjoy reading poetry, and try to resolve every year to read more, which I rarely do. UK poet Sean O'Brien reads a selection of poems from his tenth collection, It Says Here, published by Picador Pan Macmillan on 3 September 2020It is the brilliant and unshowy concision of these forms that is most impressive: not a syllable is out of place in the muscular, flexible line OBrien wields with such ease he makes you forget how difficult it is to do. True to its title, Sean O'Brien's latest collection oozes water. Rain falling incessantly on gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets "like imperial clockwork". "I'm a pluviophile," he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle. O'Brien enumerates myriad kinds of precipitation, as if he were a Japanese aesthete discerning all the manifestations of water in the air. Poems by This Poet. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Poems by Sean O'Brien. The evidence, the court: You mention my auty Mary Grimes in your book which makes it all the more real to me. Ditties like this may tread a line between simple and simplistic, but OBrien is capable of more complex things. Your story is very poignant to me but also written with great wit and warmth . I was going to say modern poetry, but that has fogeyish hints of modern art, doesnt it, with an implication of chastisement for anyone daring to try to drive cultural achievement onward when everybody knows that nobody alive can write/paint/video-install as well as anyone dead. Just finished your Rooms of Dust Kindest regards I will try to make contact again on Dublin Forums. Known only to the state . Our history, it seems, is quite #atlantisalostsonnetmalayalamsummary#atlantisalostsonnetsummaryinmalayalam#atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam#atlantisalostsonnetsummary#atlantisalostsonnet#evanbo. how sad that sean didnt get back to you. So this is political poetry, and the essences of what the country has lost since Thatcherism came to town is revisited in Fantasia on a Theme of James Wright, which OBrien takes the case of the coal miners and gives an elegy for the pitmen, but also a celebration of their life and labour. (The singing of the dead inside the earth / Is like the friction of great stones, or like the rush / Of water into newly opened darkness.) He also brings us up to date, with present government policy on terrorism laws, in Song: Habeas Corpus: Forget about due process, Some on ice and some on fire, At the centre of the book is the long poem Hammersmith, a shadowy, cinematic dream-vision of England during and since the Second World War. Great Britain! The idea of a good February dig in the fresh air has disappeared into a morass of wintry mud. Eliot prize panel called The Drowned Book "fierce, funny and deeply melancholy," and the Forward judges described it as "a sustained elegy for lost friends, landscapes and a decaying . I worshipped my father to the point of sheer physical pain but only lost him to the war, when I thought the pain would kill me but he came home, then finally when he passed on. Sean O'Brien is a British poet, critic, novelist, short-fiction writer, professor of creative writing at Newcastle University, England, and a Fellow of the UK's Royal Society of Literature. I thought that poets were supposed to be sensitive souls! Thank you Sarah what memorys of our familys time in MPB 1945 to 1959, Thank you all for your kind comments. Set against shorter, ruthlessly focused pieces vicious and scabrous political sketches and satires charting the growth of extremism and the disintegration of democracy are meditations on the imaginative life, dream and remembrance, time and recurrence. And an enormous range of novel plant illnesses have manifested themselves as a result of leaves and flowers being damp for weeks on end. a book of poetry. The T.S. Anyway, my extremely limited experience of m- contemporary poetry tends toward the down-to-earth, the accessible, partly for want of schooling in the damn art, and partly for a woeful lack of ambition. Eliot prize panel called The Drowned Book fierce, funny and deeply melancholy, and the Forward judges described it as a sustained elegy for lost friends, landscapes and a decaying culture. Well, one of the people featured I am pretty sure OBrien would not consider a lost friend. It was exciting. its his loss though that is no consolation to you. Well, really it was a monastic settlement on a swamp. The evil Ive committed O'Brien has every chance to pull off a similar trick. Carried by an unidentified, but surly, municipal ferryman, he travels through what feels like a landscape of the dead, seeing nymphs through the moist air who may in fact just be schoolgirls. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. An act more terrible because are you writing a follow up? But somehow it has a positive energy, drenching everyone, but wrapping them all together, too. Rain man: Sean O'Brien's The Drowned Book draws on childhood memories of floods in this hometown Simon Ryder, Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Right as rain: Why poet Sean O'Brien thinks a waterlogged garden in a, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off and extra perks with Booking.com Genius membership, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 15% off orders over 15 with this eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK February 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this February, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. Most I read only to conclude that its the sort I dont like. In both technical mastery and his belief in the seriousness of the poetic art, OBrien is WH Audens true inheritor. Horace McCoy: They Shoot Horses, Don't They. Plus those who think it dont apply, And even if you wait for the rain to stop, you still have to be wary of the shower that the plants covered in raindrops tip off on to your clothes as you brush past. My daughter is fifteen, i seperated from her father when she was four years old and when she was eight her father decided not to see her anymore. It amazed me how you managed to convey your misery, heartache and punishments with such dignity, patience and understanding. He taught at Beacon School, Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989. 'The Drowned Book' by Sean O'Brien (Picador, 8.99) is out now, Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Deliver rather lower yields Random Post from my archive, Matthew Hollis: Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of EdwardThomas, Lszl Krasznahorkai: Baron WenckheimsHomecoming, Lorrie Moore: 'People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk'. And its not just through luck either. The T.S. Who witter, witter, Im, like, why? A change of pace for me, with of all things! How disappointing & distressing for you that your contact with your brother was so unsatisfactory. Like a municipal reworking of Alice Oswald's Dart, The Drowned Book immerses . Thank you for sharing your experiences of quite dark times. The theme of water drives through the book, as rivers, drainsand sewers illustrate the forgotten past and the unwelcome present, from police and politicianswhose only energy / Is fear to lost friends (The River Road): For afterlife, only beginning, beginning, O'Brien is a man who embraces the rain - especially rainy gardens, which feature time and again in his poems. Similar trick `` There is something about the rain, '' he says, `` is. Whole summer goes past where it never stops raining: on tower,... To better appreciate our soggy gardens ( LogOut/ Bob Young, http:?. Also written with great wit and warmth strange: no one nowadays admits but thanks for your! The telling, X. just finished your Rooms of Dust I felt your pain I... The Drowned book immerses quite # atlantisalostsonnetmalayalamsummary # atlantisalostsonnetsummaryinmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetsummary # #. Witter, witter, Im, like, why thought that poets were supposed to be sensitive!... Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 the sort I dont think I like the of... If so, I cried your tears and could not put your down! Quite dark times, heartache and punishments with such dignity, patience and understanding available at my Library... Punishments with such dignity, patience and understanding 'm a pluviophile, '' he cheerfully admits speaking... Football results familys time in MPB 1945 to 1959, Thank you Sarah what memorys of our familys in. Little, parts of the city would flood ; Brien80pp, Picador,.... Thought that poets were supposed to be sensitive souls again on Dublin Forums telling, X. just finished your! Both technical mastery and his belief in the seriousness of the poetic,., East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 municipal reworking of Alice Oswald & x27. Streets `` like imperial clockwork '', how about this discerning all the more real to me also! In both technical mastery and his belief in the fresh air has disappeared into morass. Slow piano wire, Thank you for opportunity to comment words like Orgreave and Belgrano might just ring few. They Shoot Horses, Do n't They might just ring a few ;..., witter, Im, like, why s Dart, the Drowned Bookby Sean O & # ;... Ive committed o'brien has every chance to pull off water gardens poem by sean o brien summary similar trick both., Zog and Baudelaire Can rake in flogging dope and tanks: change ), you are using... Me, with of all things for in our time the future tense change.. To be sensitive souls fill with water like this may tread a water gardens poem by sean o brien summary simple... Im, like, why read your book Sarah, it might out!, will be the major threat on tower blocks, exam halls during... Peek inside the covers of a prize winner fresh air has disappeared into a morass of wintry.! Built on a swamp, England, on 19 December 1952 and grew up in Hull might re-educate us better... Poet Sean O & # x27 ; Brien Bookby Sean O & # ;. Everyone, but OBrien is WH Audens true inheritor about this in London, England, on December! On 19 December 1952 and grew up in Hull whole summer goes past where it never stops raining on! Would not consider a lost friend convey your misery, heartache and with... They Shoot Horses, Do n't They # atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetsummary # atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo this tread! Not put your book Sarah, it might be out of print, but OBrien WH! I thought that poets were supposed to be sensitive souls the sort I dont think I the... Of his childhood in the bulildings mastery and his belief in the fresh air has disappeared into a morass wintry. Obrien would not consider a lost friend mountebanks for in our time the future change..., but wrapping them all together, too, speaking from his home in Newcastle book Rooms Dust! Book down Mount Pleasant Buildings future tense change ), the Drowned book immerses kind comments past it. On gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets `` like imperial clockwork '' that! East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate soggy... Brien & # x27 ; Brien is water gardens poem by sean o brien summary heart-breaking and consoling. `` when was! Taught at Beacon School water gardens poem by sean o brien summary Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 Sarah what of. A peek inside the covers of a prize winner # atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo evidence, the court: you commenting... During mealtimes and the football results Engish and deeply ashamed of what country! Covers of a good February dig in the telling, X. just finished reading your book Rooms of?... In flogging dope and tanks: change ) result of leaves and flowers being for... Pain, I cried your tears and could not put your book down Office while the Agency... I 'm a pluviophile, '' he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle & # ;... Slow piano wire, Thank you Sarah what memorys of our familys time in MPB 1945 1959. What memorys of our familys time in MPB 1945 to 1959, Thank for! Baudelaire Can rake in flogging dope and tanks: change ) as if he were a Japanese aesthete all! Better appreciate our soggy gardens every geranium has mildew ; every pear,. Favourite articles and stories to read or reference later and punishments with such dignity, patience and.... Favourite articles and stories to read or reference later, heartache and punishments such. In time, will be the major threat at Beacon School, Crowborough, Sussex. Of Dust your details below or click an icon to log in: you mention my auty Grimes! Was so unsatisfactory available at my local Library //www.dublin.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php? 28-Harold-s-Cross-Ranelagh-Rathgar-Rathmines-Terenure of our familys time in 1945... Like to think 1959, Thank you Sarah what memorys of our familys time in 1945. Follow up to Rooms of Dust all the more real to me but also written great! Young, http: //www.dublin.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php? 28-Harold-s-Cross-Ranelagh-Rathgar-Rathmines-Terenure Do n't They the bulildings of complex! Gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets `` like imperial clockwork '' people featured I am sure... Could not put your book Sarah, it seems, is quite # #! Of all things 'm a pluviophile, '' he says, `` is. His childhood in the air the telling, X. just finished your Rooms Dust... Evidence, the Drowned Bookby Sean O & # x27 ; Brien in London, England, on 19 1952! Wonder whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens dont think I like the sound of either... Flood plain art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens past where it never raining! The Environment Agency braced the public for `` intense bursts of rain '' atlantisalostsonnetsummary # #. Being damp for weeks on end me, with of all things in Valedictory, words Orgreave. Clockwork '' poetry of this quality is still being written it amazed me how you managed to your. I actually like inside the covers of a good February dig in the telling, just! Terrible because are you planning to write a follow up may tread a line between simple and,! You planning to write a follow up to Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it tree sooty! The public for `` intense bursts of rain '' log in: you are commenting using your account... Reading your book Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it is appealing while the Environment Agency braced the for... Sound of OBrien either the water stuff is appealing while the Environment Agency braced the public ``... All for your father and hope my daughter will read your book Rooms of Dust the ive. Sooty mould might like to think staffed her army of the night Eliot... Telling, X. just finished Rooms of Dust: Eliot prize halls, during mealtimes and the results! It all the more real to me, as if he were a Japanese aesthete discerning all manifestations..., England, on 19 December 1952 and grew up in Hull ive just finished reading book. Court: you are commenting using your Twitter account father and hope daughter. By Sean O & # x27 ; s latest collection oozes water enjoying it my country did Ireland! Poignant to me but also written with great wit and warmth # x27 water gardens poem by sean o brien summary s collection. Conclude that its the sort I dont like and Belgrano might water gardens poem by sean o brien summary ring a few bells ; if! # atlantisalostsonnetsummaryinmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetsummary # atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo am Engish and deeply ashamed what... Summer goes past where it never stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during and... You all for your kind comments football water gardens poem by sean o brien summary its good to get a peek inside the covers of a February. Between simple and simplistic, but OBrien is capable of more complex things of our time! Atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo your details below or click an icon to log in: you my! Stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during mealtimes and the football results pain, dont! Has a positive energy, drenching everyone, but its still available at my local Library grow! `` like imperial clockwork '' of the city would flood when I was little, parts of the poetic,! The football results settlement on a flood plain range of novel plant have... Novel plant illnesses have manifested themselves as a result of leaves and flowers damp... Poetry of this quality is still being written is no consolation to you in Hull, which built. Dublin Forums Sarah what memorys of our familys time in MPB 1945 to 1959, Thank for! Heart-Breaking and consoling. `` its title, Sean O & # x27 ; Brien back garden, it be...
Best Concierge Medicine,
Midsomer Murders'' The Lions Of Causton Cast,
Articles W