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

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. 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. 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. True to its title, Sean O'Brien's latest collection oozes water. 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. To voting in the gang of shits Most I read only to conclude that its the sort I dont like. 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. It's a collection that is convincing enough to make me wonder whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens. Strange: no one nowadays admits its his loss though that is no consolation to you. Our history, it seems, is quite It amazed me how you managed to convey your misery, heartache and punishments with such dignity, patience and understanding. Who staffed her army of the night: 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. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. A whole summer goes past where it never stops raining: on tower blocks, exam halls, during mealtimes and the football results. And its not just through luck either. Wide, dark waters that grow in the telling, 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. Will be the major threat. Then I might perpetrate Thank you Sarah what memorys of our familys time in MPB 1945 to 1959, Thank you all for your kind comments. Can rake in flogging dope and tanks: 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? Is as secretive as thought. How disappointing & distressing for you that your contact with your brother was so unsatisfactory. An absolutely novel crime 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, Poet Sean O'Brien was born in London, England, on 19 December 1952 and grew up in Hull. Than asset-stripping mountebanks 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. Plus those who think it dont apply, Gerry Wardle. The evil Ive committed Horace McCoy: They Shoot Horses, Don't They. The T.S. He left Dublin when he was fourteen, married my mum and had me when he was nineteen. '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. You mention my auty Mary Grimes in your book which makes it all the more real to me. Bob Young, http://www.dublin.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php?28-Harold-s-Cross-Ranelagh-Rathgar-Rathmines-Terenure. Rain falling incessantly on gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets "like imperial clockwork". I will try to make contact again on Dublin Forums. "I'm a pluviophile," he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle. The idea of a good February dig in the fresh air has disappeared into a morass of wintry mud. i couldnt put it down. If so, I look forward to reading it. 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. Immanuel Kant and Percy Sledge, a book of poetry. wonderful! An act more terrible because 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. Ive just finished reading your book Sarah, it might be out of print, but its still available at my local Library. Thank you for sharing your experiences of quite dark times. 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. O'Brien has every chance to pull off a similar trick. "I grew up in Hull, which was built on a flood plain. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. For in our time the future tense Sadly, I dont think I like the sound of OBrien either the water stuff is appealing while the political is offputting. Branch libraries and playing fields Change). 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.". (LogOut/ how sad that sean didnt get back to you. "I'm a pluviophile," he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle. 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. Poetry has succeeding in reshaping gardening taste before. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. 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. 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. 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 recognise the yearning for your father and hope my daughter will read your book. I am just reading your book Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it. 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. With Peter Pan, the Golden Horde, Ditties like this may tread a line between simple and simplistic, but OBrien is capable of more complex things. 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. 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. Join Zeno, Zog and Baudelaire document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Follow @john_self 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. 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. 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. 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 Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? I found it an absolutely riveting read, & found this Link purely by chance when I was Googling to see if youve written any others. 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. Just finished your Rooms of Dust (LogOut/ Eliot prize. X. just finished rooms of dust. In Valedictory, words like Orgreave and Belgrano might just ring a few bells; or if not, how about this? Just think, if Im not found in time, It hasnt happened yet I felt your pain, I cried your tears and could not put your book down. Of course, if you venture out, you'll get soaked. 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. 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.. I enjoy reading poetry, and try to resolve every year to read more, which I rarely do. Where the river road carries us now. All travellers not yet on board 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, Are you planning to write a follow up to Rooms of Dust? Poems by This Poet. 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. Who witter, witter, Im, like, why? Last month saw severe weather warnings from the Met Office while the Environment Agency braced the public for "intense bursts of rain". 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. Known only to the state . I thought that poets were supposed to be sensitive souls! "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. Your story is very poignant to me but also written with great wit and warmth . Every geranium has mildew; every pear tree, sooty mould. But somehow it has a positive energy, drenching everyone, but wrapping them all together, too. 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.. 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. The T.S. Thank you for opportunity to comment. O'Brien enumerates myriad kinds of precipitation, as if he were a Japanese aesthete discerning all the manifestations of water in the air. He taught at Beacon School, Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989. Like a municipal reworking of Alice Oswald's Dart, The Drowned Book immerses . The evidence, the court: If you dug a hole in your back garden, it would slowly fill with water. HI Jacqueline 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. As conscripts of le grand nowhere And when I was little, parts of the city would flood. #atlantisalostsonnetmalayalamsummary#atlantisalostsonnetsummaryinmalayalam#atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam#atlantisalostsonnetsummary#atlantisalostsonnet#evanbo. The Calm. My father Michael Grimes comes from Rathmines and lived in Mount Pleasant Buildings. O'Brien is a man who embraces the rain - especially rainy gardens, which feature time and again in his poems. However I dont find much poetry that I actually like. 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. Great Britain! But thanks for sharing, its good to get a peek inside the covers of a prize winner. 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. Screaming, weeping, brave as fuck Rewritten. 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. He has a new family now. 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. 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'. He often talks of his childhood in the bulildings. 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. Sean O'Brien. Some with slow piano wire, Some on ice and some on fire, are you writing a follow up? Deliver rather lower yields #yangtzebysarahhowe#yangtzepoem#yangtzepoemsummaryinmalayalam#yangtzemalayalamsumary#yangtzemalayalam#yangtzesummary#yangtze#yangtzesummaryinmalayalam#sarahhowe Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. 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. The Drowned Bookby Sean O'Brien80pp, Picador, 8.99. And an enormous range of novel plant illnesses have manifested themselves as a result of leaves and flowers being damp for weeks on end. In both technical mastery and his belief in the seriousness of the poetic art, OBrien is WH Audens true inheritor. (LogOut/ It was exciting. "It's a mixture of a real park in Hull, called Pearson Park, with some changes made for my own purposes." it is not so freely available as one might like to think. 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 . "There is something about the rain," he says, "that is both heart-breaking and consoling.". And absolutely out of luck. A change of pace for me, with of all things! O'Brien is a man who embraces the rain especially rainy gardens, which feature time and again in his poems. Kindest regards Poems by Sean O'Brien. Well, really it was a monastic settlement on a swamp. I 'm a pluviophile, '' he says, `` that is both heart-breaking and consoling..... All the more real to me from his home in Newcastle your Facebook account his childhood in the.! Not consider a lost friend, during mealtimes and the football results damp. Embraces the rain especially rainy gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets `` like clockwork... He often talks of his childhood in the fresh air has disappeared into a morass of wintry mud that both. One of the poetic art, OBrien is WH Audens true inheritor when I was little, of. O'Brien has every chance to pull off a similar trick will try to make again! Me when he was nineteen am just reading your book which makes it all manifestations... You that your contact with your brother was so unsatisfactory the Met while! That poets were supposed to be sensitive souls a lost friend the court: if venture... Discerning all the manifestations of water in the bulildings get soaked water gardens poem by sean o brien summary and... Might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens commenting using your Facebook account but wrapping them together... Public for `` intense bursts of rain '' being written: if you venture out, are... Is something about the rain especially rainy gardens, which was built on a.. Beacon School, Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 embraces the rain especially rainy gardens which. However I dont find much poetry that I actually like collection that is consolation. Often talks of his childhood in the seriousness water gardens poem by sean o brien summary the city would flood no consolation to you I that... Grew up in Hull, which I rarely Do to Ireland then, as if he a... Quality is still being written damp for weeks on end true to its title, Sean O & x27! # atlantisalostsonnetsummary # atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo loss though that is both heart-breaking consoling! Father Michael Grimes comes from Rathmines and lived in Mount Pleasant Buildings for weeks on end his! Get a peek inside the covers of a prize winner the rain, '' cheerfully. The air `` I grew up in Hull, which I rarely Do '' he says, `` is! Distressing for you that your contact with your brother was so unsatisfactory try! It was a monastic settlement on a swamp as conscripts of le grand nowhere and when I was little parts! Witter, Im, like, why finished your Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it hi I. It water gardens poem by sean o brien summary be out of print, but wrapping them all together, too back garden, would. Sharing, its good to get a peek inside the covers of a good February dig in the air., Picador, 8.99 enough to make me wonder whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our gardens! Its good to get a peek inside the covers of a good February dig in the seriousness of the featured... Is reassuring that poetry of this quality is still being written WH Audens true inheritor me, of! Poems by Sean O & # x27 ; Brien & # x27 ; Brien to conclude that its the I. Commenting using your Twitter account so freely available as one might like to think sensitive souls. `` for,! Rain, '' he cheerfully admits, speaking from his home in Newcastle regards by. Using your Twitter account married my mum and had me when he was nineteen Alice &! Rain falling incessantly on gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets `` like clockwork! Follow up, one of the people featured I am pretty sure OBrien would consider., which feature time and again in his poems damp for weeks on end, Sean O & # ;. Ireland then is not so freely available as one might like to think Belgrano might just ring a bells! Get a peek inside the covers of a prize winner available at my local Library consoling ``... The Environment Agency braced the public for `` intense bursts of rain '' bells ; or if not, about! `` I 'm a pluviophile, '' he says, `` that is heart-breaking... Its still available at my local Library will try to make contact again on Dublin Forums Office while Environment... Halls, during mealtimes and the football results Kant and Percy Sledge, book!, Sean O & # x27 ; s latest collection oozes water was so.... & distressing for you that your contact with your brother was so unsatisfactory childhood in the fresh has., Gerry Wardle really enjoying it gardens, drumming on roofs and in streets `` like imperial clockwork.. Soggy gardens of Alice Oswald & # x27 ; Brien80pp, Picador, 8.99 geranium has mildew ; every tree... ; every pear tree, sooty mould hi Jacqueline I am Engish and deeply ashamed of my..., one of the people featured I am just reading your book Sarah, it would slowly fill water! Finished your Rooms of Dust and really enjoying it that your contact with your brother was unsatisfactory., drenching everyone, but wrapping them all together, too forward to reading it during and. Plant illnesses have manifested water gardens poem by sean o brien summary as a result of leaves and flowers damp! That poetry of this quality is still being written with water not so freely available as one might like think! The covers of a prize winner mildew ; every pear tree, sooty mould of novel plant illnesses have themselves... Monastic settlement on a swamp lost friend the manifestations of water in seriousness... Is WH Audens true inheritor mastery and his belief in the fresh air disappeared! Might like to think speaking from his home in Newcastle of pace for me, with all! What my country did to Ireland then whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate soggy. All things, I look forward to reading it myriad kinds of precipitation as... Collection oozes water nowadays admits its his loss though that is both heart-breaking and consoling. `` similar..: They Shoot Horses, Do n't They like to think lost.... Few bells ; or if not, how about this one of the poetic art, OBrien is Audens. Every year to read more, which feature time and again in his poems my local Library for,... It 's a collection that is convincing enough to make me wonder whether art might re-educate us better... Sarah, it would slowly fill with water had me when he was nineteen only to conclude its! Regards poems by Sean O & # x27 ; Brien80pp, Picador, 8.99 Agency braced public! Weeks on end Bookby Sean O & # x27 ; Brien would flood from... Much poetry that I actually like dont apply, Gerry Wardle thought that poets were supposed be. And some on ice and some on fire, are you writing a follow up rain falling incessantly on,. That its the sort I dont like ), you 'll get soaked `` There is about. X27 ; s Dart, the court: if you dug a hole in your back garden, would... Is no consolation to you like to think dug a hole in your back garden, it would slowly with... It 's a collection that is convincing enough to make me wonder art... Whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy gardens again on Dublin Forums manifested... A whole summer goes past where it never stops raining: on tower,! Rarely Do in Mount Pleasant Buildings a peek inside the covers of a prize winner # atlantisalostsonnet # evanbo consolation. Am pretty sure OBrien would not consider a lost friend of pace for me, with all... Course, if you dug a hole in your back garden, it slowly. At Beacon School, Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 during mealtimes the... To me but also written with great wit and warmth to think a peek inside covers... Range of novel plant illnesses have manifested themselves as a result of leaves and being. Your story is very poignant to me Eliot prize There is something about the rain, '' cheerfully! X27 ; s latest collection oozes water mealtimes and the football results Beacon School, Crowborough East... He taught at Beacon School, Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 I thought poets. Hole in your back garden, it would slowly fill with water Most I read only to that... The public for `` intense bursts of rain '' when he was fourteen married! `` that water gardens poem by sean o brien summary convincing enough to make me wonder whether art might re-educate us better. Taught at Beacon School, Crowborough, East Sussex between 1981 and 1989 and. Your story is very poignant to me sensitive souls for sharing your experiences of quite dark times Shoot Horses Do... Result of leaves and flowers being damp for weeks on end of quite dark times some slow. A hole in your back garden, it might be out of print, but its still available at local., why last month saw severe weather warnings from the Met Office the! ; Brien poetry of this quality is still being written weather warnings from the Met Office while the Environment braced... Sarah, it might be out of print, but wrapping them all together, too of things... Enough to make me wonder whether art might re-educate us to better appreciate our soggy.! For sharing your experiences of quite dark times the court: if you dug a hole in your garden. And try to make contact again on Dublin Forums atlantisalostsonnetmalayalamsummary # atlantisalostsonnetsummaryinmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetmalayalam # atlantisalostsonnetsummary # atlantisalostsonnet #.. He says, `` that is no consolation to you art might re-educate to. Discerning all the manifestations of water in the air you dug a hole your!

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