Memory is the leitmotif of the collection, sparked by the smell of orange peel with that Kavanagh-like ending of ‘sixty Christmases of age’, by the sight of ‘frozen clothes/still hanging on the garden line’, in the ‘thud on the kitchen window’ or Joe Malone’s bohemian pub of the 70s.
A Selected Poems spanning six collections and twenty years, from childhood bewilderment to adult bewilderment through Bird's oxymoronic lens of 'jaunty trauma'.
A collection of poems that turns to the domestic interiors in which the dramas of women's lives are played out: seductions and quarrels, anger and grief, the care of children. It pays attention to the humdrum realities of suburban life, attempting to make them luminous with the power of live myths.
Poet, short story writer, and children's author, Boland was born and lived for much of his life in Dublin before moving to Roscommon, where he was appointed writer-in-residence by Roscommon County Council. In the Space Between is his second poetry collection.
Brims with insight, empathy and wry humour. In his third poetry collection Gerry Boland movingly maps the territory of love found, shared and lost, while exploring what gives life meaning. These finely-crafted poems carry a particular and effecting fidelity to the rhythms of the human heart.
In the numbness of grief I felt certain I would never write poems again," Bolger claims in his prefatory note. But his readers will be glad that he has done so... (in)... what is ultimately a book of celebration...unflinching and sad - and beautiful.' - Times Literary Supplement
These four richly evocative monologues were commissioned for Dublin's Culture Connects: The National Neighbourhood. In them, Dermot Bolger conjures up reimagined lives from the rich tapestry of Dublin life over the past century; stories that conspire to be humorous, mesmerising, shocking and deeply moving.