Poetry now

On Saturday, the Irish Times Poetry Now Award will be announced in The Irish Times and presented at the Mountains to Sea festival. Today’s shortlisted poet is Bernard O’Donoghue.

Clegs at Totleigh Barton

By Bernard O’Donoghue

Plenty of gates to lean on around here,

and plenty of time to watch the horse-flies

on the dung, to see if they are really

generated from it. There is more chill

than blessing in this gentle breeze off Dartmoor,

more edge than you’d expect in September.

So: winter soon, after no summer.

Yes, this is the place: ‘Road liable to flooding’.

This is where Grace Ingoldby did handstands

on the frosty tarmac. Where Mick Imlah stayed,

when we nearly ran over the cliff

at Morwenstow, looking for Hawker’s hut

in which the old man composed, or didn’t.

Before Grace’s son died in the fire, and Grace died too.

Before Mick got ill. Today I am back on my own

to stare at these insects at their dreadful trade.

‘Now try your brakes’, it still says on the sign.

From Farmers Cross, Faber and Faber. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.