Tagged: “Portobello Sonnets”
“Malingering at the Heart of Things”: Review of Harry Clifton’s Portobello Sonnets
Benjamin Keatinge recently reviewed Portobello Sonnets by Harry Clifton in Breac, opening with “Ten rules for the returning emigrant” outlined by Michael O’Loughlin in a recent Irish Times article: “Rule number 1 reads, ‘Don’t come back,’ while rule number 10 reads, ‘Above all: don’t come back.’ As O’Loughlin reminds us, the treatment of returning Irish emigrants is one…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: A Sonnet by Harry Clifton
This week we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, a holiday that originally commemorated the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, though is now more commonly a celebration of Irish heritage, especially in the US. Harry Clifton’s latest collection, Portobello Sonnets, is a fitting selection to mark this holiday, as it is a meditation on Dublin as a microcosm of the…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: Sonnet 33 by Harry Clifton
Water is there to be looked at, not looked into —
Stay on the surface, where the dragonflies mate,
The girls return your glance, and the weather is great,