The Rain Barrel

By Frank Ormsby

Frank Ormsby's seventh collection of poems reflects not only the beauty of the Irish landscape and the sensuous and aesthetic impact of the small farms among which he grew up, but also the continuing violence of the 'Troubles'. Close to the surface of mountain and bogland lie the hidden graves of the 'Disappeared'. Ormsby continues to make vivid use of the short, resonant poems which were a striking feature of Goat's Milk and The Darkness of Snow. Here too the content is often delivered and reinforced through rich, contrasting images within or between poems: the scarlet flowers growing in a black kettle, the fuchsia that is both 'redolent of old battles' or a 'peaceful tapestry in the annals of stone'. Among the personae of the collection is the obliging father who volunteers to be buried by his children up to the neck in sand within sight of but some distance from the 'cold shadow of the mountain'. The elegiac note that echoes through the poems rarely darkens the mood. Ormsby’s wit and humour, his sly sense of the absurd and what might be called his affection for the living and the dead draw the reader into considering the conviction that it is sometimes 'possible to believe / that joy grows irresistibly at the roots of everything'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Oct 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781780374932

Book preview

FRANK ORMSBY

THE RAIN BARREL

Frank Ormsby’s seventh collection of poems reflects not only the beauty of the Irish landscape and the sensuous and aesthetic impact of the small farms among which he grew up, but also the continuing violence of the ‘Troubles’. Close to the surface of mountain and bogland lie the hidden graves of the ‘Disappeared’.

Ormsby continues to make vivid use of the short, resonant poems which were a striking feature of Goat’s Milk and The Darkness of Snow. Here too the content is often delivered and reinforced through rich, contrasting images within or between poems: the scarlet flowers growing in a black kettle, the fuchsia that is both ‘redolent of old battles’ or a ‘peaceful tapestry in the annals of stone’. Among the personae of the collection is the obliging father who volunteers to be buried by his children up to the neck in sand within sight of but some distance from the ‘cold shadow of the mountain’.

The elegiac note that echoes through the poems rarely darkens the mood. Ormsby’s wit and humour, his sly sense of the absurd and what might be called his affection for the living and the dead draw the reader into considering the conviction that it is sometimes ‘possible to believe / that joy grows irresistibly at the roots of everything’.

Cover art: Gergana Vacheva (EyeEm.com)

FRANK ORMSBY

The Rain Barrel

For Ciaran and Deirdre Carson

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following magazines and newspapers in which some of these poems first appeared: Archipelago, Arís, The Cavehill Campaigner, Reading the Future: New Writing from Ireland (ed. Alan Hayes), The Irish Times, The New Yorker, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Review, Reading Ireland, and The Tangerine. A number of poems were broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio 4 and Radio Éireann.

‘The Second-hand Bookshop’ was published in Happy Browsing: an anthology in praise of Bookfinders, assembled as a tribute to Mary Denvir when the bookshop closed in 2018.

‘Abandoned Gardens’, ‘Autumnal’, ‘Saying Goodbye to the Family’ and ‘The Poets’ were published in 7 poets, 7 poems, a limited edition of 50 copies, edited by John Brown, for the Fenderesky Gallery, 2018.

‘With Seamus Heaney in Mind’: ‘At the graveside’ and ‘Visiting the grave’ appeared as separate poems in my collection The Darkness of Snow (2017).

‘Fums and Porringers’ will feature in a forthcoming exhibition of the National Folklore Collection of Ireland.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Untroubled

The Black Kettle

The Bee-keeper

Fuchsia

The Wild Dog Rose

Foxgloves

The Butterfly House

Roman Laurel

Cows:

1  ‘Their eyes are innocence…’

2  ‘The utter ignominy…’

3  ‘We never got used…’

At the Elvis Convention

The Sound of Trains

Seaside

The Disappeared

Today There Has Been Information

Dawn Chorus, with Painting by Joan Miró

Towards an Elegy

Small Things

Small