Full Description
When Sometimes all I can Imagine are Hands
There is a winter within me,
a place so cold, so covered in snow,
I rarely go there. But sometimes,
when all I can imagine are hands,
when trees in the forest
look like they're made of wood,
then I know it's time
to take my photograph of Akhmatova
and sling it in a bag with socks and scarves.
My neighbours must think it strange
to see me strapping on my snowshoes,
to hear me roar at the huskies
as I untangle the harness.
But when all you can imagine are hands
it's best to give a little wave
and move out into the whiteness.
Bicycles, famines, ghosts, grannies, Tibetan Buddhists, Beckettian sighs and Lucian Freud's nudes are all revealed with a rare and loving simplicity in this selection from Tony Curtis's six published poetry collections, which concludes with a body of new work. Life-giving, life-affirming poetry, full of loss, love and longing.
"Underpinning the lyrical narrative is a writing style as graceful as the author's thought."
Poetry Ireland Review
Tony Curtis was born in Dublin in 1955. He is the author of six warmly received collections of poetry. His most recent, What Darkness Covers, was published by Arc in 2003. In that year also, he was the recipient of the Varuna House Exchange Fellowship in Australia. Curtis has been awarded the Irish National Poetry Prize and is a member of Aosdána, the Irish academy of the arts.
Contents
from The Shifting of Stones (1986): Home Thoughts / 15 The Shifting of Stones / 17 The Morning After Eden / 18 The Suitcase / 19 The Disturbance / 20 Cold as the Irish Sea / 21 Gilhaney's Nightmare / 24 from Behind the Green Curtain (1988): The Touch / 29 Rowing to the Island / 31 Behind the Green Curtain / 33 Homage / 35 Siren Off Inisheer / 37 A Winter's Tale / 38 On a Mountain Road / 39 from This Far North (1993): Penance / 43 Passion / 44 Preferences / 45 The Dreaming / 47 A Postcard from a Brothel in Singapore / 49 These Hills / 51 Island Man in Paris / 52 When Sometimes all I Can Imagine are Hands / 53 Maddening Relations / 54 Staying at the Big House / 58 Unveiling / 59 The Dowser and the Child / 61 I am the Night Watch / 63 Tea / 65 The Coat / 67 Northern Haiku / 68 From a Famine Journal / 69 First Impression / 70 Passing Through / 71 Wasted Misery / 72 Terrible Dead / 73 Wretched Cargo / 74 Ruined Christmas / 75 Big Houses / 76 Victoria Visits / 77 New Australians / 78 from Three Songs of Home (1998): Redeemed / 81 All the Mountains / 82 Still Life / 86 In Darjeeling / 87 Air / 88 Prayer Guide / 89 Hat / 90 The Damned / 91 The Journey Home / 93 Now that I am Almost Dead / 95 A Habitable Place / 96 The Crossing / 100 Lobsang's Wife / 102 Blue Bowl / 104 Bread / 106 Lobsang's Last Wish / 108 Ch'a / 109 Stillness / 111 The Voyage / 112 A Quiet House / 113 from What Darkness Covers (2003): 'Tonight my love's eyes...' / 116 Blind / 117 What Darkness Covers / 118 Another Room / 120 Juliet Sleeping / 121 Masterplan / 122 Still Life with Books / 124 Nude / 125 The Long Rest / 127 Baffled / 129 Found Poem / 133 Jimmy / 134 Currach / 136 from Poems After Painting by Lucian Freud Portrait / 138 Nude with Legs / 140 Dark Chocolate / 141 Big / 142 The Bateman Sisters / 144 Naked Girl with Egg / 146 Petrarch's Wife / 147 Mountain Woman / 148 Olympians / 150 The Boat / 154 Now Winter's Over / 155 from The Magical Book of Winter Cures The Cure for a Broken Heart / 156 The Cure for Melancholia / 158 The Cure for Loneliness / 160 New Poems: Tossing the Feathers (2006): Foraging / 165 The Dead Time of the Year / 166 Odd / 168 The Sad Daughter's Tale / 170 Sheltering / 171 The Master Weaver / 173 Beckettian Clerihews / 174 Self Portrait / 175 The Knot / 176 Seven Haiku for Sahoko's Drawing / 178 Dublin - The New Year / 180 Seventeen Bridges / 181 The Poet and the Mouse / 185 Six Twenty-five a.m / 186 The Well in the Rain: And when the Heart / 187 Hymn to Life / 191 Close / 192 Anniversary / 193 Coming Home After Watching Dancers / 194 The Family Tree / 196 Biographical Note / 199
