Its Words You Want

The earliest of these poems reflect time spent in Barcelona where Patrick Kehoe taught English. Indeed many of the poems in this collection conjure the life of a young man abroad in that city, five years or so after the death of General Franco. Later poems pay moving tribute to his late parents and the people of his native city, Enniscorthy, as well as revisiting Barcelona. Other poems evoke in sensuous, luxuriant meditations the shimmering essence of a Corfu summer.

A thoughtful and assured debut collection.

City, Like Hands

You looked for Spanish cigarettes
To feel you had arrived. The streets
Stretched away in an untapped web,
Bronze light as though everything was free.

City, like hands, washed by the Mediterranean
Pleading gold benediction through a winter;
Spring became summer, trains rolling
Punch drunk with day-trippers.

Snail-paced by calm
In the cypress grove of Montjuic:
Its words you want, to hold you in their hands
And take the bare look off intimacy.

Patrick Kehoe was born in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, Ireland in 1956. His first poems were published by the late James Liddy in broadsheets and issues of The Gorey Detail. Early poems were also published in the Irish Press. In recent times his work has appeared in Natural Bridge, Cyphers and The Scaldy Detail. Formerly a teacher, he has been working as a journalist in Dublin for the past 23 years. He is also a guitarist and songwriter. This is his debut collection.