Tumbling Paddy

Frank Ormsby was born in 1947, in Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, and was educated at Queen's University in Belfast. Until 2010 he was Head of English at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. His latest collections are The Tumbling Paddy (Bloodaxe Books, 2026), The Rain Barrel (Bloodaxe Books, 2019) and The Darkness of Snow (Bloodaxe Books, 2017), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, which was shortlisted for a National Book Circle Critics Award in the US. His retrospective Goat’s Milk: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2015), includes work from four earlier collections, A Store of Candles (Oxford University Press, 1977), A Northern Spring (Secker & Warburg, 1986), The Ghost Train (Gallery Press, 1995) and Fireflies (Carcanet, 2009), together with new poems, and was shortlisted for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize. He has edited a number of anthologies and other books, including Northern Windows: An Anthology of Ulster Autobiography (1987), Thine in Storm and Calm: An Amanda McKittrick Ros Reader (1988), The Collected Poems of John Hewitt (1991), A Rage for Order: Poetry of the Northern Ireland Troubles (1992) and The Hip Flask: Short Poems from Ireland (2001), all from Blackstaff Press, and The Blackbird's Nest (2006), an anthology of poems from Queen's University, Belfast. Frank Ormsby was editor of The Honest Ulsterman from 1969 to 1989, and has also edited Poetry Ireland Review. In 1992 he received the Cultural Traditions Award, given in memory of John Hewitt, and in 2002 the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the University of St Thomas at St Paul, Minnesota. Frank Ormsby was guest of honour at BBC Proms in the Park 2017 at Castle Coole in Northern Ireland; actor Adrian Dunbar read two poems from Goat’s Milk: New & Selected Poems accompanied by the Ulster Orchestra and harpist Richard Allen in a specially commissioned work by Graeme Stewart. In 2018 Frank Ormsby collaborated with singer/songwriter Anthony Toner on an album The Kiss of Light. The album features recordings of Frank reading eleven of his own poems, with each reading followed by a short instrumental composed by Anthony Toner in response to the poems. Frank Ormsby served as the eighth Ireland Professor of Poetry from 1 November 2019 until 31 October 2022 and was succeeded by Paul Muldoon.

When he explores again a lifetime’s themes and preoccupations, Frank Ormsby, like all true poets, mysteriously finds himself breaking new ground. Even more uncannily, several of his recent poems already read like classics. Wise and vulnerable, this poet courageously scans the horizons presented by illness and death. Love poet as well as elegist, he embraces heartbreak and gladness. Its depth of thought and emotion gives The Tumbling Paddy a sense of resurrection.

• I12 Florence Court and the Marble Arch Caves 12 1 Florence Court13 2 The Marble Arch Caves14 3 Formations15 4 Father of Speleology16  5 From the Irish 17 6 Echoes18 7 The Barn Dance19 8 Norah and Juggy21 9 Natterer’s Bat22 10 Juggy23 11 Homage to Juggy24 12 Untitled II26 Landscapes27 We Could Have Done28 Racoon29 Cicadas30 Rhinoceros31 Magpies32 On the Run33 About Silence34 Dreaming of Auschwitz35 Reconnaissance36 The Terrace 37 The Terrace: First Winter38 Anonymous39 In Great Form40 Half-brother41 The Tumbling Paddy42 From the Ards peninsula42 1 The Pole42 2 The Birds43 3 The Lovers44 Uncle Tom and Alice McLean46 Achill47 Hayfield48 Clydesdales 49 Spraying the potatoes50 Rooks and Nightingales50 1 At the ford50 2 Punishment squad51 3 Too late51 4 Today’s theme52 5 Last poems52 6 Briars53 7 The bonfire54 Under Fire55 Tribes (1)56 Tribes (2)57 Veterans, Antrim Coast, 199458 The Courtyard59 The History Club Outing60 Ode to Retirement61 A Walk on the Quays62 I Appear to Have Mislaid63 Remind Me How Often64 Solo65 My Oriental Fathers66 The Poet Travels North III68 Small World (5)68  Homage to Sirius68  Shattered wineglass68  Chairs up-side68  The plastic turd68  Bringing us all back69  Harmonies in Fountain Lane69  Tonight sleep has a shape69 Under the fire escape69  The Angelus bell rings sharpest69  Coitus interruptus70  The asterisk spiders70  After the poet’s death70 Hurricane Ophelia, Storm Jocelyn70 The poet is feeling his age70 Stones we skimmed as childrenIV73 Autumn Burials73 1 Your Final Bed73 2 Laid Out for Burial74 3 Finalities74 4 No Last Words75 5 In the Wind75 6 During Hurricane Ophelia76 7 The Absence of Crows76 8 New Cemetery77 9 Elegiac 79 Notes