The Seasons of Cullen Church

Shortlisted for the 2016 T. S. Eliot Prize, this new collection of expert lyric poems from Whitbread Poetry Award winner Bernard O'Donoghue movingly animates the scenery and characters of his childhood in County Cork. The mythologies of family are here: the relative who maybe emigrated to America to be 'set upon at his arrival / for the few pounds sewn inside his coat'; the memory of 'Barty, a hopeless speller', caned so hard he dances; the big top come to the town park; the stolen apples raided