The Radio

by Leontia Flynn

Shortlisted for the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize In her fourth collection, Leontia Flynn rehearses and resolves the concerns and forms of previous books, beginning with a sequence written in the aftermath of her father’s death from Alzheimer’s disease and during the care of her daughter in infancy. Moving on to explore the constructed nature of childhood, via a long poem imagining her mother’s experiences in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and in an elegy for Seamus Heaney, the poems also seek to contrast the isolation and privacy of an experience of family life with increasingly pervasive and relentless digital technologies. Drawing on a range of other voices and literary exemplars, including a tradition of verse drama and dialogues, and particularly Plath’s ‘Three Women’, The Radio sees writing poems as a communication that begins with an act of interior listening, for sounds and forms, and to personal sources of meaning. The Radio explores the pressure the interior life faces from both the usual quotidian struggles and the new stridency and quick-fire certainties of virtual communication. Showing her superb mastery of form, Leontia Flynn’s poems are fragile, funny, observant and engaging – reminding us, once again, of her originality and importance.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

Published November 9, 2017

About the author

Leontia Flynn (b.1974) is a poet from Northern Ireland. She grew up in Ballyloughlin, County Down. She studied English Literature at Queen's University Belfast followed by a masters in writing and cultural politics at Edinburgh University. She later returned to Queen's to complete her PhD.

Flynn has been Research Fellow at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry, Queen's University Belfast, since 2005 and currently edits the journal The Yellow Nib with Frank Ormsby. As of February 2014, she is the Seamus Heaney Poet-in-Residence at the Bloomsbury Hotel, London.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished: 13.08.2019
Genre: poetry
Rating: A
#TBR list 2019
Conclusion:

2019 The Radio (Leontia Flynn)
32 poems and I liked ..18 of them.
56 % = That is a GOOD SCORE!

The Radio was published in 2017,
was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and
won the Irish Times Poetry Now Prize.

PART 1 The Child, The Family (10 poems)

The book gets off to a good start
….but most poetry collections puts some
great poems at the beginning as a ‘hook’.

There are some great images:
Yellow Lullaby
...description a mother rushing to a crying child:
"…barreling out like some semi deranged trainee barista
…friendly but confused.”

Alzheimer’s Villanelle (Flynn's father suffered from Alzheimer's disease)
description of the disease…
” ...imagine a train delayed, delayed, delayed
that pulls up without a passenger or driver.”

PART 2 ...And the Outside World (19 poems)
The first two poems are stunning:
August 30th 2013 (...day of Seamus Heaney's death)
Field of Yellow Flowers.....for Gavin Turning 40 (....memories of a lover)
There follows another 7 poems with 'good' or 'very good' in my notes.
Unfortunately after that...the collection seemed to lose its strength
...like a bike tire soundlessly leaking air.

PART 3 Poems Conceived as Dialogues (3 poems)
Experimental....but I was still not impressed.

Conclusion:
This is a collection of poems I would re-read.
If you see this book in your library just stuff it between
your other book hauls
....and let Leontia Flynn surprise you!

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about death, motherhood, family, and sorrow.

from The Radio: "Sine my mother fell on the Wheel of Motherhood / —that drags her, gasping, out of bed each dawn / bound to its form—she's had to rally back. / She wrangles her youngsters into one bright room / and tries to resist their centipetal force"

from Give It Up, Moron: "Once, every day's fierce sun blazed madly for you / when, hot on her heels, you'd scuttle off after her / —the girl that you loved, like nobody has ever been loved; / to where, back then—oh yes—it was all fun and games"

from I Can't Say I Love You: "If you weren't so good / I'd hate you the way I hate—well—everyone. / But nothing I ever did or said to you / earned me the death-by-a-hundred-shitty-poets"

[Juliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leontia Flynn’s 2017 collection ‘The Radio’ was a thoughtful birthday gift last month (after me complaining that no one ever gets me poetry as a gift...) and I finally had a chance to read through these grounded and excellent poems yesterday. Written with precision and care, each word weighted and every poem a testament to meaning, this is a moving and heartfelt collection and an exciting intro (for me anyway) to Flynn’s work.

[Russio · Rating 4 out of 5]

When it is good, it is really, really good. The first third contains the essential titular poem, about the poet's mother's experiences during the troubles, which is immediate and both affirming and discomforting at the same time. Her poem about her father's Alzheimer's is short and sharp.

Broadening her view in the second section, an elegy to Heaney is excellent. This section is mostly elegiac.

The final section is three duologues, of which the third is the most affecting.

[Robert Welbourn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of heartfelt and naked poetry. I can't say the last time I read something this raw and emotional.

[scarlettraces · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I think... I didn't have enough patience to appreciate these properly

[Peter B Waddell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This very engaging anthology includes two poems with the same name as the collection. The Radio (the first one) is reason enough to buy this book. Terrific. Thank you.