water gardens poem by sean o brien summarywater gardens poem by sean o brien summary

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

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