First thought: Thom Gunn, âThoughts on Unpackingâ. âI realise,â he ends, âthat love is an arranging.â No sooner thought, I think of another, cracking conclusion: âThe world might change⦠Change as our kisses are changing
without our thinking.â And then I think of âBreakfast Songâ, another Elizabeth Bishop poem weâre lucky to have in print. Of Derek Mahonâs âMonochromeâ. Of Seamus Heaneyâs âSkunkâ. Even Matt Healyâs âSomebody Elseâ (as good as Dylanâs âIdiot Windâ).
âTo My Wife at Midnightâ, Grahamâs best. âSleeping alone together,â he looks at her beside him, asleep in her âlonely
Selected by David Wheatley
In the fourth installment of The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, curated by 2008 Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize-winner David Wheatley, five Irish poets – the experimental Trevor Joyce, religious celebrant Aidan Mathews, elegist Peter McDonald, modern poet Ailbhe Darcy, and Irish speaker Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh – receive their official publication debut among North American readers.
In the anthology’s preface, Wheatley notes that despite his chosen poets’ regional variance and differences in age (37 years separate Joyce, the eldest poet in the collection, and Ní Ghearbhuigh, the youngest), his selection takes care to evade “questions of generational groups and territoriality to explore a series of related but distinct issues” in each of the five bodies of work. In this he is successful: the anthology is a latticework of themes, from troubled love, as seen in Joyce’s defiant “I will not die for you” and the raw honesty of Ní Ghearbhuigh
Bloom time If you dream of filling your home with your own cut flowers, gifting website and flower farm Bell Meadow has introduced a flower seed collection that will help you realise that ambition. It contains 11 seed packets (each with detailed growing instructions on a card to keep for reference) including sweet peas, cornflowers and marigolds. These are all suitable for beginner growers and will attract pollinators to your garden. Bell Meadow’s Maria Ryan suggests starting the sweet peas now indoors if you want earlier blooms; the others can be started in early spring inside, or planted directly into the garden or a raised bed later in spring, once the danger of frost has passed.
Castletown Cox €12.6m
Tulira Castle, outside Ardrahan, Co Galway, and famed for its association with Lady Gregory, WB Yeats, John Betjeman and a host of literary nobles, has been given a new lease of life as the country residence of CarTrawler founder Niall Turley (52) who paid €5.8m for the pile and 265 acre estate some years ago.
Built around 1882 by Edward Martyn, it was later owned by his cousin Mary, wife of Fitzroy Hemphill, a baron, barrister and horse racing enthusiast.
Turley is believed to have netted €40m after selling internet car rental booking system CarTrawler, which he owned with his brother. He continues to run his numerous business interests from his home in Rathgar, Dublin.
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