The Rain Barrel

Frank Ormsby

• Publisher: Wake Forest University Press
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781943666348
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

Frank Ormsby's enchanting new volume, The Rain Barrel, allows us to see with eyes "still wet from the Creation." He is a "local fire-god with a tongue of flowers." His sense of the folkloric and country life in general is self-assured and true, but he also writes with flair and insight on such subjects as art and artists. He has mastered the Haiku, the erotic poem, and, throughout his storied career, the wistful but unsentimental elegy: "The whole season has come to this: / a holding on so that the letting go / might seem to us like chance." The title sequence ties these themes together in a meditation on the object, its uses and symbols, until in the last poem of the sequence he reflects on how like the barrel we are, fulfilling our roles as we deteriorate beyond repair.

Table of contents

• Start
• UNTROUBLED
• THE BLACK KETTLE
• THE BEEKEEPER
• FUCHSIA
• THE WILD DOG ROSE
• FOXGLOVES
• THE BUTTERFLY HOUSE
• ROMAN LAUREL
• COWS (1)
• COWS (2)
• COWS (3)
• AT THE ELVIS CONVENTION
• THE SOUND OF TRAINS
• SEASIDE
• THE DISAPPEARED
• TODAY THERE HAS BEEN INFORMATION
• DAWN CHORUS, WITH PAINTING BY JOAN MIRÓ
• TOWARDS AN ELEGY
• SMALL THINGS
• SMALL WORLD (4)
• FROM A BELFAST JOURNAL
• SAYING GOODBYE TO THE FAMILY
• WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS
• THE LOVE POEM
• CONVALESCENE
• THE BOOKMARK
• SECONDHAND
• NITS
• PRELIMINARIES
• EVENING ON THE FARM: EARLY WINTER
• POEM BEGINNING AND ENDING WITH A DRUNKEN POET
• THE POETS
• THE LAUNCH
• WITH SEAMUS HEANEY IN MIND
• STARLINGS
• THE KINGFISHER
• AUTUMNAL
• THE LAST LEAF IN THE GARDEN
• FUMS AND PORRINGERS
• THE URBAN FOX
• SCARECROW
• THE SUITCASE
• AT A RAILWAY STATION, CALCUTTA
• WINTER LANDSCAPE WITH SEARCHERS
• HE WAS THE EIGHTH TO GO MISSING
• BILLY ROBINSON’S KAWASAKI
• ABANDONED GARDENS
• SOME FARMYARD BUCKETS
• THE HATCHET
• CUSTODIANS
• THERE WILL BE A KNOCK
• WAKE IN PROGRESS
• SLEEPING AND FORGETTING
• THE BOMB
• THE SECURITY MAN
• CHAGALL’S GOATS
• ARISTOTLE REACHES FERMANAGH
• ROSARY
• RAINS
• PULSE
• THE RAIN BARREL
• WHEN SHE DIED, THINKING OF HIM
• NO CLOSURE
• RAIN FLOWERS
• GRACE BEFORE MEALS
• THE DOGS
• BEYOND THE WALLS
• THE GREY SQUIRREL
• SHARING BEDS
• THE PARENTS WAIT
• PARENTS
• LESSONS
• VISITORS, 4 A.M.
• THE ROUNDABOUT
• ALL HE REMEMBERED
• OUR WOODS WERE FRIENDLY
• THE TWO TREES
• THAW
• RUNNING WATER
• AFTER FERNANDO PESSOA
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• NOTES