Peter Fallon launches new poetry collection by Tom French in Navan

The fourth collection of poetry by critically acclaimed poet Tom French will be launched at Navan bookshop Blackbird Books tonight, Thursday, May 26th.

French, a native of Kilkenny, has lived in Meath for a number of years and as well as his award-winning poetry, is a familiar face to many through his work in the local studies department of Meath Library Service.

The Way to Work, like his three previous collections, Touching the Bones, The Fire Step and Midnightstown, is published by Ireland’s leading literary publisher, Gallery Press, based at Loughcrew, Oldcastle. Peter Fallon, Gallery’s editor and publisher and an esteemed poet in his own right, will launch the book at Blackbird Books, Old Corn Market, Navan, at 7.30pm. It’s a free event and all are welcome.

The launch continues a hectic few weeks for French, who was presented with the O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry at the Center for Irish Studies of the University of St Thomas in Minneapolis last month.

From his Forward Prize-winning debut collection 15 years ago, through The Fire Step (2009) and Midnightstown two years ago, French’s work delves into the mysteries and grief common to all family relationships as well as the intensely felt absence of what used to be immediately to hand – Ireland’s rural life.

From the Laytown races to Gogarty’s Printers in Kilmainhamwood, the landscape and personalities of French’s adopted Meath is never far away, and in The Way to Work readers will again recognise a host of familiar people and places, including the swimming pool in the Neptune Hotel in Bettystown and Francis Ledwidge’s house at Janeville.

Shane Breslin of Blackbird Books said: “Tom French has been a friend of the shop since well before we opened our doors, and we feel privileged to be able to host the launch of his new collection of poetry.

“Anyone who happens to stumble upon his poetry will recognise immediately that here is the work of a huge talent. Poems such as Touching the Bones, the title poem in his first collection, Night Drive and A Lift just stop you in your tracks.

“If you know me, you’ll know I’m a big fan of writing about sport, and from horse racing to hurling, Tom treats sport brilliantly – so much so that he had a number of poems included along with the likes of Seamus Heaney, Brendan Kennelly, Paul Muldoon and Paul Durcan in Poetry Ireland’s sport-themed collection, Everything to Play For, last year. I’m really looking forward to the new collection, and hope to see many familiar faces on the night.”

The citation read at the presentation of the O’Shaughnessy Award included the following praise: “With his expert craft, aesthetic invention, arresting emotional perception and dedication to the high purposes of poetry, Tom French has enriched the literary and cultural life of Ireland and the world. It’s also fitting that Tom is a librarian as well as a poet. Poetry is an archive of intense experience, and libraries are archives of our shared human experience.”