Liffey Sequence

by David Butler

David Butler's third poetry collection.

95 pages, Paperback

Published July 28, 2021

About the author

Since returning to Ireland after ten years of wandering, David Butler has worked as Education Officer at the James Joyce Centre, and has lectured in Spanish Literature at TCD, Essex University, Carlow College and UCD. His first novel The Last European was published in 2005 (Wynkin de Worde), while his debut poetry collection Via Crucis (Doghouse) appeared in 2011. A second novel The Judas Kiss (New Island,2012) was favourably reviewed in the Sunday Times by Alan Murdoch, who in particular noted Butler's talent for characterisation. No Greater Love, a collection of his short stories, was launched in London (Ward Wood) in 2013. His story 'Taylor Keith' won the Fish short story award 2014. His most recent novel, City of Dis, (New Island), was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year 2015. A second poetry collection, All the Barbaric Glass' (Doire Press) was published in 2017. A second short story collection, Fugitive, is forthcoming from Arlen House, and a third poetry collection, Liffey Sequence, from Doire Press in 2021. He lives in Bray with wife and author Tanya Farrelly.

Reviews

[Séamus de Buitléir · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Butler’s 3rd poetry collection takes on the many layers of his native Dublin with two sequences of poems set around the south coast and the Liffey. For Butler the map of a city is a palimpsest: history lessons imperfectly erased, and in these sequences he ensures that the trace of the dispossessed and marginalised is uncovered.

[David Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Five stars are based on the following endorsements from three very fine poets:

Butler is a master craftsman at work. In this series of line-perfect poems, he uses the sharp edges of language as a tool to carve and shine. Here are poems, like monuments, that celebrate the ghosts and contours of the poet’s beloved Dublin. Liffey Sequence traces a city of riches that will leave readers utterly spellbound.
– Annemarie Ní Churreáin

I read David Butler’s Liffey Sequence with a deepening sense of awe and respect. Throughout the collection, poem to poem, single lines leap from the page, astonishing in their brilliance, unforgettable in their descriptive and lyrical command. The book reminds me of what poetry can be: wise, honed, abundant, and a pleasure to read and re-read.
– Eleanor Hooker

Swirling with wind and birds, this new collection by David Butler offers us deft sketches of his native Dublin. Doubt haunts Butler’s work, which acknowledges – and admirably accepts – the inevitable human attempt to find meaning even when it eludes us. This finely crafted third collection offers the reader plenty to savour, leaving us pondering over the ghosts of Dublin past and the troubling flotsam of its present.
– Katie Donovan