Gone Self Storm

Harry Clifton was Ireland Professor of Poetry in 2010-13. His books include Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks (Wake Forest University Press, USA, 2007), winner of the Irish Times / Poetry Now Award, and five titles from Bloodaxe, among these, The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass (2012), shortlisted for Irish Times / Poetry Now Award, The Holding Centre: Selected Poems 1974-2004 (2014), The Portobello Sonnets (2017), Herod’s Dispensations (2019) and Gone Self Storm (2023). After many years travelling and living Africa, Asia and Europe, he now lives in Dublin.

Soul, song and formal necessity, Clifton has all three – he is one of the poets who matter.

• PART ONEi.m. Dorothy Francesca Brandon Clifton, 1928–201911 A Ship Came from Valparaiso12 Chile13 To the Engineer Herbert Ashe15 Sin-eater16 Neruda17 Rapa Nui18 The Widow Transitito19 Stepmother21 Woman’s Home Companion22 The Zeal of the Convert24 What a Boy Should Know25 Atacama Clothes-dump26 Mother and Son27 Whatever It Is28 A Woman Drives Across Ireland30 A House Called Stormy Weather32 The Aching Void33 Goodnight Antofagasta35 White CityPART TWO39 Glasnevin Clay42 Gainor Crist43 The Has-beens45 Going Feral46 Alice48 Staten Island Ferry49 Harvard Yard50 The Fur Trade52 The Gig with the Golden Microphone54 On Ventry Strand55 Amergin57 Nafooey59 The Salmon Cages61 Radio Silence62 After the Barbarians64 InscapePART THREEi.m. Mary Bridget McKavanagh Madden, 1925–201469 The Felling72 In Brontë Country73 Spinsters74 Notes for a Townland75 Honesty76 The Decoys77 The Sweep78 Jericho80 The Place of the Stonings81 The Pure Source83 Diatomite84 The Ulster Cycle86 Toome88 Germinal90 Praeger91 The Earliest Breakfast in Northern Ireland92 At the Grave of Seamus Heaney