Böcker av Theo Dorgan

In this vivid, unsparing, new collection, Irish poet Theo Dorgan reaches deep into his Cork childhood to examine, among other things, the wellsprings of what would become a life in poetry. At times with the forensic detachment of adult distance, at other times given over to reliving a child's conscious attention to his own life, these poems explore a past where everything is new in the living moment and yet, somehow, "everything will go on forever". If the family is where we learn to understand feelings and affections, school is the hard place where we meet the powers of the world, where we encounter and learn to deal with both the liberating and the oppressive powers of language. School, as the growing boy experiences it, is the place where we learn either to surrender or to stand free in the world, and freedom comes with embracing, understanding, the weight and responsibility of choosing your words, of speaking for yourself.The poet's beloved native city is a ghostly, sustaining, presence throughout - city familiar and mysterious, cradle of possibilities the young boy dreams of, gazing longingly through the classroom window. In that place, in those days, Dorgan made certain promises to himself. Once Was a Boy asks if those promises were kept.

In this vivid, unsparing, new collection, Theo Dorgan reaches deep into his Cork childhood to examine, among other things, the wellsprings of what would become a life in poetry. At times with the forensic detachment of adult distance, at other times given over to reliving a child's conscious attention to his own life, these poems explore a past where everything is new in the living moment and yet, somehow, "everything will go on forever". If the family is where we learn to understand feelings and affections, school is the hard place where we meet the powers of the world, where we encounter and learn to deal with both the liberating and the oppressive powers of language. School, as the growing boy experiences it, is the place where we learn either to surrender or to stand free in the world, and freedom comes with embracing, understanding, the weight and responsibility of choosing your words, of speaking for yourself.The poet's beloved native city is a ghostly, sustaining, presence throughout - city familiar and mysterious, cradle of possibilities the young boy dreams of, gazing longingly through the classroom window. In that place, in those days, Dorgan made certain promises to himself. Once Was a Boy asks if those promises were kept.

Born in Cork in 1953, Dorgan is one of Ireland's best-known poets. This volume is a vivid, sensual, technically brilliant new collection which transports the reader through time and space, history and myth, love and death.

Theo Dorgan's gripping account of a transatlantic voyage on the schooner Spirit of Oysterhaven-from the Caribbean to the coast of his native Cork-is both travelogue and meditation, interior journey and outward voyage of exploration. Dorgan's meticulously exact account of the labour and skills involved could well act as a handbook for anyone prompted to repeat the adventure. His feel for the history of the sea and sailing, drawn from wide reading, is tested against the practical realities of what is involved in such an ambitious undertaking. The qualities of endurance and willingness he must find in himself, the shared experiences that make four individuals into a crew, all these come as a succession of revelations. He brings a poet's eye to the immensities of the ocean, its lore, its mysteries and its secrets. As so many before him, he will learn that what you find on the journey, not the destination, is what matters. "A book for everyone"-Doris Lessing "This book exerts a form of curious hypnosis which stealthily insinuates its rhythms into your mind. It keeps you alert while somehow lulling you into a drift of easy reading. This enticing travelogue's curious spell is slow and incremental, yet all the more potent for being stealthy." -THE SCOTSMAN