Gorse Fires

by Michael Longley

Gorse Fires is an unusual artistic darkly austere, yet abundant in images, catalogues and syntactical virtuosity. Longley’s versions of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca and ‘Ghetto’ – based on the polish ghettos – epitomize his concern with the meaning of home and family.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Michael Longley was a Northern Irish poet. Following his death, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, called Longley "a peerless poet".

Reviews

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a discussion on Irish poetry with a coworker, I decided to reread this one. Longley is a part of the remarkable late 20th Century generation of Irish poets. Seamus Heaney is at the top of the heap, but Longley has carved out his own niche. His poems are profoundly lyrical, but he brings in the academic and topical too. This is probably his best individual collection of poems.

"Ghetto, I"

Because you will suffer soon and die, your choices
Are neither right nor wrong: a spoon will feed you,
A flannel keep you clean. a toothbrush bring you back
To your bathroom's view of chimney-pots and gardens.
With so little time for inventory or leavetaking,
You are packing now for the rest of your life.
Photographs, medicines, a change of underwear, a book,
A candlestick, a loaf, sardines, needle and thread.
These are your heirlooms, perishables, worldly goods.
What you bring is the same as what you leave behind,
Your last belonging a list of your belongings.


If this doesn't give you chills, no poetry will move you.

[Caspar "moved to storygraph" Bryant]

lovely Longley piece and it's not hard to recognise it as the turning point for him that it's labelled as. He's very recognisable here. but o my that man was traumatised