Lifting the Latch

Finely honed, thoughtful and affecting, Frank Dullaghan's accessible poetry is increasingly assured and poised. His language is clear and elegant, but the apparent simplicity contains a depth of experience that these these poems memorable. Digging deep into memory, but eschewing sentimentality, Frank Dullaghan's poetry is insightful, poignant, but ultimately life-affirming. Excerpt from: 'The Day of the Robin' Dundalk 1966I grew to understand it often rainedinside my father's head, that sometimeshe went under, drowned.But that day he put out his handand the robin came to him, a small flutterof surprise from the close bush. Praise for previous collections: "Frank Dullaghan's quietly spoken poems move between tenderness and terror with a humane warmth ... The language follows and embraces a wide range of affairs, touching on loved, known and dangerous things - the texture of experience - lightly, unfussily, with a lovely ear for the plain cadence that is, for most of us, the sweet-sad music of being alive." George Szirtes