From Publishers Weekly
Galvin's eyes, set on nature even when lensed through a skylight, well serve his mind, which is set to discover the fuller reality beneath and behind the observed. As in his previous work, notably Great Blue (1990) and 1992's narrative Saints in Their Ox-Hide Boats, Galvin tried to understand the self via the world, not the other way around: "even the common foreground/ chickadee and background crow/ give dimension to our days." A clear sense of place permeates these poems: Ireland, Scotland, Cape Cod and unnamed spots rendered so vividly readers will feel sure they have been there. Though each poem celebrates concrete circumstance and specifics (birds, boats and water recur), such pathways out of the self cycle back into the self. Sighting whales in "Estuary," he observes, "the pod revealing itself/ in breath tree, fin, roll,/ piecemeal the way this/ one place in the ceaseless/ round of the world/ offers itself...." Galvin's vision is usually sparsely peopled?except in the longer narratives. These latter offer captivating glimpses of mother and aunt, daughter, a Portuguese uncle. Of some Cape Cod village characters, old-time street people, he writes: "They were the canaries in our mine-shaft,/ our early warning systems, and never/ disappeared into the shops all day/ but stayed on the sidewalks to hinder/ the broom of the future simply by being there."
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
Against Genealogy
Anchorites
Apple Talk
Below The Hill Of The Three Churches
Cobwebs On The Hillside
A Cold Bell Ringing In The East
Crossing Pentland Firth
Cuckoo
Draggers
Estuary
Far Mulliskay
For A Daughter Gone Away
Getting Through
If Memory Comes To The Tongue
Nimblejacks
Norwegians At The Shetland Hotel
Noss
One For The Life List
The Patience Of White Birches
Pococurante
The Portuguese Uncle
Raiding The Boundary Stone
Rained Out
Seeing For Ourselves
Sky And Island Light
Skylights
The Stones Of Callanish
Swallows
Uncle Patrick And The Doppelgangers
Under My Stornoway Hat
West Cork: The Road Bowlers
Wild Blackberries
You Drove Out From Drogheda
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Anchorites
Apple Talk
Below The Hill Of The Three Churches
Cobwebs On The Hillside
A Cold Bell Ringing In The East
Crossing Pentland Firth
Cuckoo
Draggers
Estuary
Far Mulliskay
For A Daughter Gone Away
Getting Through
If Memory Comes To The Tongue
Nimblejacks
Norwegians At The Shetland Hotel
Noss
One For The Life List
The Patience Of White Birches
Pococurante
The Portuguese Uncle
Raiding The Boundary Stone
Rained Out
Seeing For Ourselves
Sky And Island Light
Skylights
The Stones Of Callanish
Swallows
Uncle Patrick And The Doppelgangers
Under My Stornoway Hat
West Cork: The Road Bowlers
Wild Blackberries
You Drove Out From Drogheda
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
