"This sombre collection showcases O'Brien's varied use of forms and subject matter, exploring themes of history, remembrance of war and political conflict, death, time, the passing of friends and loved ones as well as human desire and culpability. A central sequence entitled Impasse is inspired by Georges Simenon's Maigret novels. These poems plunge us into the landscape of the detective hero's world, a process O'Brien describes as analogous"
"Structured as a continuous narrative, it illustrates the frustrations, inequities and relentless cycle of 21st-century manual labour: The night is proletarian, a morgue of ghosts / given the present is a borderline. Rice documents the tragic incidents and surreal imaginings that occur within the nightmarish confines of a plastic moulding factory. Once, in this building, a kid clocked off night shift / for good at the end of a rope / another's heart gave out at 3am / performing a task as menial as mine."
The Bonfire Party is a sombre collection that employs varied poetic forms to probe history, remembrance of war and political conflict, death, time, the passing of friends, desire, and culpability. A central Impasse sequence draws on Maigret detective motifs, treating cities, railway stations and libraries as recurring dreamlike symbols that preserve mystery. The final sequence adopts an elegiac, pensive tone that invokes birdsong and the rising lark's descant composed of silence. Plastic is a continuous, book-length narrative poem about a night worker turned poet that exposes the brutal cycles of 21st-century manual labour, workplace tragedy, and intergenerational trauma while finding small hope in poetry. Retablo for a Door draws on the retablo votive tradition as an image of protection and gratitude.
#contemporary-poetry #war-and-remembrance #labor-and-working-class-life #elegy-and-mourning #narrativesequence-poems
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