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That Morning Will Come: New & Selected Poems by SEAMUS CASHMAN
| Paperback | 130 x 204 mm | 112 pages | ISBN 978-1-903392-63-8 | November 2007
Cork born Seamus Cashman is the founder of one of Ireland’s leading literary and cultural publishing houses, Wolfhound Press. Previous poetry collections are: Carnival and Clowns & Acrobats. He edited two landmark anthologies for young readers, The Wolfhound Book of Irish Poems for Young People (1975) still in print, and Something Beginning with P: new poems from Irish poets (2004). He is a publishing consultant and writing tutor. He lives in Portmarnock.
The new poems in this collection reflect Cashman’s sense of place and of the spiritual groundings of daily life characteristic of his early poems. Secrets, a sequence of thirteen poems written following a visit to Palestine—such as ‘The separation wall’, ‘Random contact’, ‘Exceptions to the truth’—are passionate responses to contemporary political tragedy, abuse of human rights, and love of homeland (tír grá). Poems in section two, Opening Doors, dance between childhood and parenthood, catch glimpses in mirrors and are ‘Flying skies’. Here are accessible, confident poems by a poet whose lyrical voice captivates.
About Seamus Cashman’s poetry
“…poems of lasting quality…” Poetry Wales Review
“…a wit, ease and naturalness to admire and enjoy.” Poetry Ireland Review
“All of Cashman’s poems are carefully chiselled and smoothly polished.” Irish Catholic ‘Bookshelf’
“…strong imagery…and with a smoothness of poetic texture...” Books Ireland
Sample Poem
I Room-mates in Jayyous
We are deep-rooted and wise; flowers and birds are our songs; we share the surprise of stone and water.
Our loving is brief; like the midday heat our hatred is long; generosity dries like a stolen well.
In sunshine our shadows toll our fields to harvest. So bitter for holy places, we lust for hilltop, valley, river, dream.
Is it because we tell our story that we share this floor of shattered glass?
Is the melody all peeled from our song? Is the wall too high?
Who tears apart our hearts? Who will not hear? Who tears our eyes apart? Who will not see?
Who cuts the trunk so branches wither dry? Who drinks the water, hides the sky.
As each day dies we wait in darkness for a dawn. And then we bury our dead.
Review by Patricia Monaghan for Booklist (The American Library Association), July 2008
The great Irish poet Paddy Kavanagh distinguished between provincial and parochial artists. For former, he said, ignored the homeplace; for instance, the Inishkeen poet writing for the Dublin set. The parochial poet, however, writes for those nearby and so doing t aps into universal themes and feelings. No longer self-consciously shamrocky or, more self-consciously, avoiding everything Irish, such Irish poets as Cashman are parochial and global. Cashman begins his fine new collection in Palestine, another divided and war-weary land, in which people "wait in darkness for a dawn" and "melody [is] all peeled from our song." The poem is remarkably tuned to the tragic beauty of occupied lands, where "negotiation is a song / with its rhythm, rhyme, and wrong" and people love one another despite it all. Elsewhere, he seamlessly links the Irish language and references to Irish traditions to epigrams from Geronimo and classical allusions. In a sure, measured voice, Cashman shows that natural beauty and family affection are the same in Jerusalem and Portmarnock.
| Paperback | 130 x 204 mm | 112 pages | ISBN 978-1-903392-63-8 | November 2007 
