Carcanet Press Logo
Quote of the Day
an admirable concern to keep lines open to writing in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and America.
Seamus Heaney

Thumb's Width

John Redmond

Cover Picture of Thumb's Width
Categories: First Collections
Imprint: Carcanet Poetry
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (240 pages)
(Pub. Feb 2001)
9781857545098
Out of Stock
  • Description
  • Excerpt
  • Author
  • Two men might float a cow to Mweenish
    in a slapdash currach on a slow, calm day
    but even the Twelve Disciples, God knows,
    would have been damn glad to get out alive,
    as these trippers from the sloping ferry
    with their high-strung boots and rucksacks
    leaped on to our boat ('Watch my foot!')
    and we got lower and lower in the water.


    from 'St. MacDara's Island'

                 
    The title Thumb's Width, from the German Daumenbreite (roughly equivalent to an inch), indicates the book's preoccupation with the miniature. Sketching the child-hood relationship between two brothers, the poems frequently focus on small objects - shrimps, cigarettes, 'cat's eyes', plastic soldiers - to which childhoods become attached. Beginning on the west coast of Ireland, particularly the tiny islands where human settlement has ceased, the book travels out, geographic-ally and thematically, by means of a variety of lyric, comic and dramatic forms. These patterns act to fold the smaller, remembered patterns of an Irish childhood into the larger shapes of the adult world.
    John Redmond was born in Dublin in 1967. After completing a D. Phil on the subject of contemporary poetry at Oxford, he taught for two years at Macalester College in Minnesota. Currently he is a Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Liverpool. He reviews poetry widely and was associated ... read more
Share this...
The Carcanet Blog Baby Schema: Isabel Galleymore read more The Iron Bridge: Rebecca Hurst read more Sleepers Awake: Oli Hazzard read more The Miraculous Season: V.R. 'Bunny' Lang, edited by Rosa Campbell read more Egg/Shell: Victoria Kennefick read more The Devil Prefers Mozart: Anthony Burgess read more
Find your local bookshop logo
Arts Council Logo
We thank the Arts Council England for their support and assistance in this interactive Project.
This website ©2000-2024 Carcanet Press Ltd