Poetry collection by Damian Smyth

Poetry collection by Damian Smyth

20 June 2018

DAMIAN Smyth has a new collection of Downpatrick-inspired poetry.

Market Street, Downpatrick Races and the Down Recorder have all been the geographic anchors of previous collections. This time historic English Street has the honours.

Born in 1962, Damian is a civil servant and has been an editor, playwright and critic. His previous five collections of poems are Downpatrick Races (2000), The Down Recorder (2004), Lamentations (2010), Market Street (2010) and Mesopotamia (2014).

Damian’s work is deeply embedded in Downpatrick and Down, where he is fascinated by the complexities of small towns in general and Downpatrick, his home town, in particular.  He has spoken previously about how he hopes writing about something “local, true and real” will have something to say to anybody from anywhere.

English Street, published by Templar Poetry, was launched last week at Belfast Book Festival, which stated in its programme:

“Damian Smyth’s sixth collection is focused on what has always distinguished his work — the myths and moments of a market town in Ireland, with the vexations, joys and disruptions that belonging to anywhere brings.

“English Street brings another dimension – that most slippery idiom which ‘hides its letters, like buried children,in plain sight, like bomb and ghost and listen,

This cuckoo tongue, my migrant, this English’.”

For more information on English Street by Damian Smyth visit: https://templarpoetry.com/collections/damian-smyth.