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