CRICKET IN COLLEGE PARK

A batter bats
& the sound of willow
on leather cracks
over an empty Sunday.

Players clap.
A leaf-blower,
sleep-walking,
wakes to a new number.

to Ben, 16.viii.2020

ROOF

Shortly before the roof fell in,
He had been sitting on the veranda,
Listening to Berlioz.

James Joyce’s ear keenly attuned to music’s centrality in Irish life

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Seamus Heaney’s hearth language: The words the poet grew up with in Co Derry

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Writer’s mews: Mary Lavin’s informal literary salon in Lad Lane

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The eternal stranger – Declan Kiberd on Places of Mind: A Life of Edward Said

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He moved into the garden
And was trimming roses
When the noise startled him.

Now he must camp in the field,
Set up tent under the humming stars.

Philip Coleman teaches in the School of English at Trinity College Dublin. His most recent book is The Selected Letters of John Berryman (Harvard University Press), co-edited with Calista McRae.

Padraig J Daly’s poem is from his recent collection, A Small Psalter (Scotus Press)