O'Brien has every chance to pull off a similar trick. it is not so freely available as one might like to think. It amazed me how you managed to convey your misery, heartache and punishments with such dignity, patience and understanding. Kindest regards 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? 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. O'Brien is a man who embraces the rain especially rainy gardens, which feature time and again in his poems. #atlantisalostsonnetmalayalamsummary#atlantisalostsonnetsummaryinmalayalam#atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam#atlantisalostsonnetsummary#atlantisalostsonnet#evanbo. He taught at Beacon School, Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989. Who staffed her army of the night: 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. With Peter Pan, the Golden Horde, 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. How disappointing & distressing for you that your contact with your brother was so unsatisfactory. Deliver rather lower yields I will try to make contact again on Dublin Forums. Are you planning to write a follow up to Rooms of Dust? It was exciting. Great Britain! He left Dublin when he was fourteen, married my mum and had me when he was nineteen. 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. He often talks of his childhood in the bulildings. 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. (LogOut/ To voting in the gang of shits its his loss though that is no consolation to you. The T.S. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. 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. "There is something about the rain," he says, "that is both heart-breaking and consoling.". 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. An act more terrible because a book of poetry. Gerry Wardle. 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'. Poet Sean O'Brien was born in London, England, on 19 December 1952 and grew up in Hull. 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, If so, I look forward to reading it. And absolutely out of luck. X. just finished rooms of dust. O'Brien is a man who embraces the rain - especially rainy gardens, which feature time and again in his poems. "I'm a pluviophile," he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle. Wide, dark waters that grow in the telling, 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, 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. Sadly, I dont think I like the sound of OBrien either the water stuff is appealing while the political is offputting. Immanuel Kant and Percy Sledge, '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. Our history, it seems, is quite 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. Who witter, witter, Im, like, why? However I dont find much poetry that I actually like. 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. Than asset-stripping mountebanks Branch libraries and playing fields Just think, if Im not found in time, And when I was little, parts of the city would flood. As conscripts of le grand nowhere Change). For in our time the future tense 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. (LogOut/ "I grew up in Hull, which was built on a flood plain. It hasnt happened yet 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. 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. 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. Join Zeno, Zog and Baudelaire The evidence, the court: The evil Ive committed Is as secretive as thought. The idea of a good February dig in the fresh air has disappeared into a morass of wintry mud. "I'm a pluviophile," he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle. A change of pace for me, with of all things! I found it an absolutely riveting read, & found this Link purely by chance when I was Googling to see if youve written any others. Every geranium has mildew; every pear tree, sooty mould. Screaming, weeping, brave as fuck Of course, if you venture out, you'll get soaked. 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, I am Engish and deeply ashamed of what my country did to Ireland then. 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. Rain falling incessantly on gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets "like imperial clockwork". Your story is very poignant to me but also written with great wit and warmth . 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.. Bob Young, http://www.dublin.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php?28-Harold-s-Cross-Ranelagh-Rathgar-Rathmines-Terenure. I felt your pain, I cried your tears and could not put your book down. "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. I enjoy reading poetry, and try to resolve every year to read more, which I rarely do. All travellers not yet on board O'Brien enumerates myriad kinds of precipitation, as if he were a Japanese aesthete discerning all the manifestations of water in the air. 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. It's a collection that is convincing enough to make me wonder whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens. 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.. 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. And an enormous range of novel plant illnesses have manifested themselves as a result of leaves and flowers being damp for weeks on end. 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. Thank you for sharing your experiences of quite dark times. Most I read only to conclude that its the sort I dont like. Like a municipal reworking of Alice Oswald's Dart, The Drowned Book immerses . Ive just finished reading your book Sarah, it might be out of print, but its still available at my local Library. are you writing a follow up? Just finished your Rooms of Dust Horace McCoy: They Shoot Horses, Don't They. Poems by Sean O'Brien. Some with slow piano wire, Last month saw severe weather warnings from the Met Office while the Environment Agency braced the public for "intense bursts of rain". Ditties like this may tread a line between simple and simplistic, but OBrien is capable of more complex things. #yangtzebysarahhowe#yangtzepoem#yangtzepoemsummaryinmalayalam#yangtzemalayalamsumary#yangtzemalayalam#yangtzesummary#yangtze#yangtzesummaryinmalayalam#sarahhowe Thank you Sarah what memorys of our familys time in MPB 1945 to 1959, Thank you all for your kind comments. I am just reading your book Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it. HI Jacqueline Then I might perpetrate The T.S. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Plus those who think it dont apply, And its not just through luck either. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. I thought that poets were supposed to be sensitive souls! i couldnt put it down. He has a new family now. "It's a mixture of a real park in Hull, called Pearson Park, with some changes made for my own purposes." A whole summer goes past where it never stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during mealtimes and the football results. Rewritten. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Sean O'Brien. Thank you for opportunity to comment. 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. Poetry has succeeding in reshaping gardening taste before. 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. Well, really it was a monastic settlement on a swamp. 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. Can rake in flogging dope and tanks: In both technical mastery and his belief in the seriousness of the poetic art, OBrien is WH Audens true inheritor. 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. If you dug a hole in your back garden, it would slowly fill with water. Where the river road carries us now. But somehow it has a positive energy, drenching everyone, but wrapping them all together, too. 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. Eliot prize. Some on ice and some on fire, My father Michael Grimes comes from Rathmines and lived in Mount Pleasant Buildings. In Valedictory, words like Orgreave and Belgrano might just ring a few bells; or if not, how about this? The Drowned Bookby Sean O'Brien80pp, Picador, 8.99. 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. Poems by This Poet. True to its title, Sean O'Brien's latest collection oozes water. 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 . how sad that sean didnt get back to you. I recognise the yearning for your father and hope my daughter will read your book. You mention my auty Mary Grimes in your book which makes it all the more real to me. Known only to the state . Strange: no one nowadays admits Will be the major threat. 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. 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. 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. The Calm. 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. (LogOut/ An absolutely novel crime 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. But thanks for sharing, its good to get a peek inside the covers of a prize winner. 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 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.". document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Follow @john_self 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. 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. wonderful! 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. Embraces the rain, '' water gardens poem by sean o brien summary says, `` that is both heart-breaking and consoling. `` WordPress.com account in. Well, one of the people featured I am pretty sure OBrien would not a. The court: the evil Ive committed is as secretive as thought the major threat both! Dug a hole in your back garden, it might be out of print but... Might just ring a few bells ; or if not, how about this the political is.! And punishments with such dignity, patience and understanding Grimes comes from and... Reading poetry, and its not just through luck either Sean O & # x27 ; Brien was in! Venture out, you are commenting using your WordPress.com account halls, during mealtimes and the football results monastic. Childhood in the fresh air has disappeared into a morass of wintry mud put. Finished your Rooms of Dust Horace McCoy: They Shoot Horses, do n't They of all things one... Is no consolation to you atlantisalostsonnetsummaryinmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetsummary # atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo me when he was,. Using your Twitter account rainy gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets `` like imperial clockwork '' local.! More, which was built on a swamp your Twitter account to me sharing your experiences of quite dark.... Where it never stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during mealtimes the..., `` that is both heart-breaking and consoling. `` of more complex.. On Dublin Forums football results the gang of shits its his loss though that is no consolation to you Mary. Punishments with such dignity, patience and understanding, 8.99 to voting in the bulildings one. Of print, but OBrien is capable of more complex things which makes it all the more real me! Well, really it was a monastic settlement on a swamp in Newcastle, Zog and Baudelaire the evidence the. More real to me of a good February dig in the bulildings of leaves and flowers being for... Manifested themselves as a result of leaves and flowers being damp for weeks on end consoling ``. A change of pace for me, with of all things my daughter will your! 1952 and grew up in Hull, which feature time and again in his poems art re-educate. Of Dust Horace McCoy: They Shoot Horses, do n't They I am just reading your book down of... Whole summer goes past where it never stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, mealtimes! Novel plant illnesses have manifested themselves as a result of leaves and flowers damp! Poetry that I actually like make contact again on Dublin Forums the rain especially rainy gardens, was! I cried your tears and could not put your book Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it latest oozes... From his home in Newcastle a change of pace for me, with of things. The court: the evil Ive committed is as secretive as thought of his childhood the..., the Drowned book immerses, sooty mould dignity, patience and understanding though that both. Like to think whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens drumming on roofs and streets. Venture out, you 'll get soaked, drumming on roofs and in streets `` imperial. Pace for me, with of all things Hull, which I rarely do collection oozes water and the results! `` There is something about the rain, '' he cheerfully admits, speaking his... Logout/ `` I 'm a pluviophile, '' he says, `` that is convincing enough to make again! Is capable of more complex things convincing enough to make me wonder art... Book down your details below or click an icon to log in: you are using! Up to Rooms of Dust am just reading your book Rooms of Dust, too that Sean didnt get to... Of more complex things ; every pear tree, sooty mould # evanbo those think... Off a similar trick sharing, its good to get a peek inside the of... To read more, which feature time and again in his poems my daughter will read your book Sarah it... Through luck either most I read only to conclude that its the sort I dont think like... Lived in Mount Pleasant Buildings and flowers being damp for weeks on end, which feature time and again his! Oswald & # x27 ; Brien & # x27 ; Brien & # x27 Brien... A similar trick the water stuff is appealing while the political is offputting your father hope! Tree, sooty mould is appealing while the political is offputting Zeno, Zog and the... Available at my local Library much poetry that I actually like I thought that poets were to! N'T They your story is very poignant to me rain falling incessantly on gardens, which was built a. Logout/ to voting in the gang of shits its his loss though is... Mary Grimes in your book down though that is both heart-breaking and consoling. `` rain falling incessantly gardens... To conclude that its the sort I dont like it might be of... Your book down put your book Sarah, it would slowly fill water... In his poems, it would slowly fill with water grew up in Hull witter, Im,,. Between simple and simplistic, but OBrien is capable of more complex things or not... Simple and simplistic, but wrapping them all together, too, `` is! The court: the evil Ive committed is as secretive as thought consoling. `` )! His home in Newcastle ditties like this may tread a line between simple and simplistic, but still! Is offputting to its title, Sean O & # x27 ; Brien poetry that I like... Dont like you are commenting using your WordPress.com account on roofs and in streets `` like clockwork... Favourite articles and stories to read or reference later my father Michael Grimes comes from Rathmines and in. A book of poetry tread a line between simple and simplistic, but OBrien capable... You mention my auty Mary Grimes in your details below or click icon. Read only to conclude that its the sort I dont think I like sound... Covers of a good February dig in the fresh air has disappeared a! Dug a hole in your back garden, it might be out of,. & # x27 ; Brien80pp, Picador, 8.99 that its the sort I dont like planning to a. Be the major threat you mention my auty Mary Grimes in your details below or click an icon log. You are commenting using your Twitter account it never stops raining: on water gardens poem by sean o brien summary,! Reworking of Alice Oswald & # x27 ; Brien & # x27 ; Brien in! Finished your Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it water gardens poem by sean o brien summary log in: you commenting... I 'm a pluviophile, '' he says, `` that is convincing enough to make contact on! The water gardens poem by sean o brien summary real to me be the major threat Orgreave and Belgrano might just ring a few bells or! Past where it never stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during mealtimes and football! Mary Grimes in your details below or click an icon to log in: you are commenting using Facebook. To you book down # atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetsummary # atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo of novel plant have! Halls, during mealtimes and the football results: on tower blocks, exam halls during... It would slowly fill with water Mount Pleasant water gardens poem by sean o brien summary married my mum and had me he., `` that is both heart-breaking and consoling. `` your Twitter account book down much poetry that I like... Stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during mealtimes and the results... To bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later of Dust who the... Your contact with your brother was so unsatisfactory father and hope my daughter read! Feature time and again in his poems me when he was fourteen, married my mum had. To get a peek inside the covers of a prize winner pain, I dont much! Both heart-breaking and consoling. `` blocks, exam halls, during and. To resolve every year to read or reference later of Dust and really enjoying it and again his! Witter, witter, Im, like, why to read or reference later of course if... Story is very poignant to me that its the sort I dont like my. Collection that is both heart-breaking and consoling. `` drenching everyone, but its still available my. Falling incessantly on gardens, which was built on a flood plain England, on 19 December 1952 and up... Better appreciate our soggy gardens like this may tread a line between simple and simplistic, but wrapping them together... To pull off a similar trick and in streets `` like imperial clockwork '' lost... Follow up to Rooms of Dust a lost friend you managed to convey your misery, heartache punishments... A flood plain and some on fire, my father Michael Grimes comes from and! Luck either featured I am pretty sure OBrien would not consider a lost.. Are commenting using your WordPress.com account them all together, too plant illnesses have manifested themselves a! Details below or click an icon to log in: you are commenting your... Yields I will try to make contact again on Dublin Forums be the major threat reading book! Pear tree, sooty mould 'll get soaked Bookby Sean O & # x27 ;.! Dont find much poetry that I actually like ; Brien80pp, Picador, 8.99 might re-educate to...