Sean O'Brien

  • “Things often move slowly in the poetry world!” said I. Do you think if we rechristened poetry “slow books” it might become as vaguely trendy as the slow food and cittaslow movements? But then even vague trendiness is probably not what poetry needs. Remember, it was once the new rock ‘n’ roll. Now, it’s The

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  • On the train into Edinburgh for Polly Clark‘s reading the other night, I finally started to read Sean O’Brien‘s Forward and TS Eliot prize-winning collection The Drowned Book. Now, I might be missing something–I must be missing something, if the judges of both prizes aren’t–but I simply couldn’t get into it. It’s not that it’s

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  • The sharp eyed among you will have noticed that, despite previous posts on the Forward prize shortlists, I’ve not yet commented on the results. The main reason for this, aside from the usual time pressures, is that so far I’ve read only one of the shortlisted collections in each of the book lists–John Burnside’s Gift

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