Goat's Milk: New and Selected Poems

by Frank Ormsby, Michael Longley (Introduction)

Frank Ormsby’s keen eye is trained on numerous the unheralded country people in Northern Ireland, American soldiers stationed there during World War II, and the rich natural world of Westchester County north of Manhattan. However, these sympathetic poems are not untroubled observations. As Michael Longley notes in his “From early on something desolate and unsettling shades this poet’s vision, counteracting his warmer compulsions.” The Troubles of Northern Irish history hover in the margins of many poems, but are not central to the stories the poems have to tell—how life continues in its daily forms no matter what type of fate descends. There are poems of death and birth, love and heartbreak, but the voice behind the poems unites them in the simplicity of his telling. Ormsby’s words are seldom flashy, but glow steadily with both transparency and assuredness.

Genres: Poetry

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2015

Reviews

[Nathan]

I stumbled onto Frank Ormsby,
and I'm the gladder for it...

There's a quiet confidence
in these poems that feels no need
to flex its muscles or wear tight t-shirts.

And, within the realm of Irish poets,
I must say that I like him much better
than some of his well-known counterparts
that I've been "told" to like, if not worship.