Inside Out

By Tommy Collins

Inside Out is the debut collection of poetry by Tommy Collins where we have the beginnings of poetic sensibility – observing, exploring, testing and seeking to develop an authentic and unique voice. Throughout the work there is a sense of both detachment and participation where the poet is involved in, yet observing from outside – interpreting, shaping and making sense of experience. - Kieran Beville

Tommy Collins’s poems are rooted in the physical and social geography of his native city and are characterised by an alluring sensuousness and emotional honesty. Inside Out is a welcome and deserving addition to the canon of Irish poetry. - Michael Durack

Tommy Collins’ debut collection Inside Out shimmers from within its prismatic languages of Gaelic and English to cast the exquisite light of images and sounds from the rippled edges of the Shannon in Limerick where “beauty [is] triumphant over grief,/ so that in “socruithe sochraide”,/ the Irish language translation of funeral arrangements, you/ just might find a rhythmic poetry,/ some sense of hope”. - Sandra Yanone

His heartstrings and his poetic vision register a tender and verbal simplicity. May Bank Holiday, Limerick, greets the world with ‘what we call fun.’ Lyrical and colloquial, the poems that feature in Inside Out are a blend of youth, identity crisis and a series of deeply felt love letters: From Revival Press, Tommy Collins’ debut collection Inside Out is very welcome, warm voiced and easy to enjoy. - Jim Burke

• Language: English
• Publisher: Limerick Writers Centre
• Release date: Jan 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781370166107

Tommy Collins

Inside Out is the debut collection of poetry by Tommy Collins. Tommy was born in Limerick City in 1988. He wrote many of his early poems in the after-school study hall in Ardscoil Rís. He continued to write as a student teacher in Mary Immaculate College, where he also completed his MA in Irish. Poetry in Irish and in English has been published by Stanzas, the White House Poetry Revival Journal, The Stony Thursday Book, UL’s Ogham Stone, and Mary Immaculate College’s Scothsmaointe Gan Smál. He is also known as a football goalkeeper, a slow but enthusiastic runner, and an occasional singer.

Book preview

Although some find it mad what we call fun

(the lengths to which we’ll go to get our thrill)

it’s great to get out, greet the world, and run.

True, there are softer threads which could be spun

and gentler things to do with time to kill,

but it’s not madness, no, to call this fun,

To persevere under the burning sun,

to battle wind and rain, all focus, will,

the great passion to face nature and run

is strong enough to shirk comforts and shun

temptation, gluttony and sloth, to fill

moments of freedom with this form of fun.

With or without the thund’rous starting-gun,

above or staring up at some great hill,

we move outside with this passion to run.

No matter where we’ve come from, lost or won,

raw from the heat or bitter with the chill,

and though some find it mad what we call fun

it’s great to get out, face the world and run.

Where I Lie

Waking for the fifth time

from just this one night’s sleep

with any sense of order lost

to fretful thoughts - missed appointments,

the scattered remnants of dreams,

imagined faces staring

from nook and shadow eye-sockets

in the bedroom floor laundry mess,

there is a shameful temptation

to try to make some kind of sense,

to justify the disarray and disorder

as physical manifestations

of great internal chaos,

a tangled metaphor,

tangible and suitably stale,

representing the torment of my soul,

perhaps even a cry for help

from the haunted psyche of

a stubborn but brilliant artist.

But alas! The truth is that

it's no interpretation of creative madness,

nor any lovesick sadness,

but detritus and laziness

and carelessness with my possessions.

Snowdrops

And so a new question arises,

to replace whatever it was

that I wondered a few moments ago.

Already that’s forgotten,

although it may come back to me

sometime in a dream, or in a daydream.

For now I’ll ponder on this new thought.

But how can I be sure that it is really fresh or new?

This morning I passed three snowdrops

in my garden that have flowered every year,

even when the grass and weeds

were left to grow around them.

Every year, from the same beginnings,

they brighten up late winter mornings

despite the cold and dark conditions.

Every year they are fresh and new,

as if forgotten then remembered with delight.

Is this new thought like those flowers?

Have I just recalled it from the past?

And now where is it going?

I’ve lost it again, between the darkness

and the flickering lights of screens

on machines that entertain us.

And so another new question arises,

a choice on which to meditate:

will I chase after my lost thought,

or draw upon its loss instead?

Vandals

Words are scribbled surreptitiously on desks

for about as much respect as prison tattoos,

and though some are