I guess I must have been in two minds
about the new day
as the daylight gods
began to march in straight lines
going I don’t know where

from ‘The Spare Room’


In his first collection for more than a decade, Tom Paulin revisits themes of place, occupation, conflict and legacy, primarily in the context of his native Northern Ireland. Stories and memories, even histories, are shown to be both frail and persistent, troubling and vital. There is a powerful austerity in play as he sets aside the rhetorical force and linguistic dazzle for which he is renowned, to speak simply of later life and the losses it brings: ‘if only some idea / could find its way / through enemy territory / then I’d at last begin / to look up at the sky.’ As outward-looking as ever, he also includes here intimate and resonant versions from Brecht and Ronsard, and from the contemporary Palestinian poet, Walid Khazendar.

‘To say the [Fivemiletown] was one of the best books of the Eighties isn’t enough: it is one of the best books I know, or for that matter, am capable of imagining . . . what British or Irish poet was doing anything like this?’ Michael Hofmann, London Review of Books

‘Tom Paulin is among the best of a great generation of Irish poets.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Paulin often creates the illusion that the poem is being made up as he goes along. Spontaneity is difficult to pull off in poetry but it is a Paulin forté. The casualness is only possible because of the absolute control of form, each poem a windbreak for his words . . .
’ Kate Kellaway

‘[Tom Paulin''s] short, punchy poems are characterised by their ability to evoke images through the smallest details, or through sudden shifts of register ... Mr Paulin''s poems fight against lazy uses of language ... in Love''s Bonfire Mr Paulin demonstrates the strength that comes with saying less, not unlike relying on only a spark for warmth.’ The Economist