Ballina poet's new collection
New book by Michael Durack
Michael Durack’s new poetry collection, This Deluge of Words, published by Revival Press, will be launched during April is Poetry Month at The People’s Museum, Limerick on Friday, April 7, at 7.30 pm. The launch will be performed by D’or Seifer, poet and co-hostess of the popular Lime Square international Zoom poetry forum.
The collection is divided into four sections commencing with A Key in the Lock, a series of memoir poems recalling the poet’s childhood, youth and early adulthood. Most of those poems are set in his native Birdhill and his adopted home territory of Ballina-Killaloe.
A life-long passion for sport is reflected in the second section, In the Field of Play, set on GAA and Rugby pitches including Semple Stadium and Thomond Park.
Work on this collection commenced in the Spring of 2020 just as the Covid pandemic struck and the third section, In the Shadow of Covid, reflects the various moods induced by the lockdowns and social disruption during that traumatic period.
The final section, In the Forest of Language, comprises a miscellany of poems written in various styles and forms on themes private and public. There are free verse poems, villanelles, sonnets, pantoums and sestinas peopled with an eclectic cast of characters ranging from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Tom Crean, from Botticelli’s Venus to The Birdman of Alcatraz, from WB Yeats to the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma, from Persephone to Pavlov and his dog.
According to Dublin poet, Brian Kirk: “Michael Durack takes pleasure in bringing a smile to readers’ faces. But concealed among the playful word games and extended metaphors are subtle but powerful moments of philosophical clarity and guileless beauty.” While American poet, Arthur McMaster writes that “Durack’s voice is engaging, clear and compelling - a poet attuned to those singular moments that both intrigue and inform us, often years and years after their day.”
Michael Durack’s poems have appeared in publications such as The Blue Nib, Skylight 47, The Banyan Review, The Waxed Lemon, The Poetry Bus, Drawn to the Light, The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry Ireland Review and The Stony Thursday Book as well as airing on local and national
radio. He is the author of a memoir in prose and poems, Saved to Memory: Lost to View, and two previous poetry collections, Where It Began and Flip Sides published by Revival Press. With his brother Austin he has collaborated on two albums of poetry and guitar music, The Secret Chord and Going Gone.
BOOK STOCKISTS
This Deluge of Words will be on sale at The Nenagh Bookshop, at O’Mahony’s and Quay Books in Limerick, and in Ballina-Killaloe at TJ’s, The Forge, Costcutters and Larkin’s Gala Store. It may also be purchased online from limerickwriterscentre.com.