Enough Light to See the Dark

Frank Dullaghan''s ''poet''s voice'' and Irish way with words ring true as a bell. These are poems of love and loss, the deaths of parents, and children, the illness of a son. Ireland, childhood, mythology are layered like peat in poems of insight into the lives of others, the ''bog-dark silences'' of people''s lives, the ''dark within the fairy tale''. The poems move from past to present, from Ireland to Dubai, closing with ''The Record-Player'', for his wife, Marie, remembering when they were ''just out of uni, money so new/and exciting'', and ''The future was more possible than the past.'' An admirable collection, well worth the wait. Gillian Clarke The poems here travel from provincial Ireland across the world, as much at home in history and folklore as they are in modernity. Their real territory is the mind, in all its darkness, strangeness and joy. Frank Dullaghan has a light touch with language but his words leave a lasting mark. Matthew Francis See more