Surreal Man
The 35 pages of Surreal Man exhibit a vocal and conceptual scope which would be the envy of most full-length novels. Recording O’Driscoll’s ongoing engagement with surrealism, the collection embraces Carribean dialect, layered elegy and side-splitting raconteurism.
The poems hint throughout at the depths or heights of meaning which may appear to accompany the mundane, but these are kept in check throughout by a masterful irony which keeps any one solution to their cunning problematics from stealing the show. This may be the hallmark of O’Driscoll’s intellectual integrity but it also imbues the poetry with a mobility and freshness which prevents the reader from lingering in any one place for too long. Surreal Man underlines O'Driscoll's refined appreciation for place and memory, but also reminds us that he loves nothing more than to keep his readers on their toes.
36pp ISBN 0-9542443-8-9
£8 plus £4 p&p
THE TREE OUTSIDE MY WINDOW
There are many mansions in
the tree outside my window.
James Joyce is there, reciting
the sequel to Finnegans Wake
to oysters eating fillets of the rich
in its seafood restaurant,
and there's the repentant pope
nodding in total agreement
with the Marxist theologians
of its leafy constellations.
And the cringing olive-eyed
mongrel from down the lane
takes the evening paper
from his former master's mouth,
while the children of Peru
throw away their begging bowls
and screaming with delight
climb to the topmost branches.
O the fine ales the beautiful dead
drink in the tree outside my window!
Green is its darkness and its silver
in the breeze is starlight.
