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Gorse Fires

    by Michael Longley Gorse Fires

Temporarily Out of Print

Winner of The Whitbread Poetry Award
Notable Books of the Year, 1992 New York Times Book Review

"Some of these poems by a leading writer of Northern Ireland are certain to become anthology pieces. There is no voyeurism or sensationalism in his lines about the human suffering of his divided land, but his quiet outrage and his passion for peace burn into the mind." New York Times Book Review, Notable Books of the Year

The Ice-Cream Man

Rum and raisin, vanilla, butter-scotch, walnut, peach:
You would rhyme off the flavours. That was before
They murdered the ice-cream man on the Lisburn Road
And you bought carnations to lay outside his shop.
I named for you all the wild flowers of the Burren
I had seen in one day: thyme, valerian, loosestrife,
Meadowsweet, tway blade, crowfoot, ling, angelica,
Herb robert, marjoram, cow parsley, sundew, vetch,
Mountain avens, wood sage, ragged robin, stitchwort,
Yarrow, lady's bedstraw, bindweed, bog pimpernel.



52 pages

1991

$3.95 paperback (used copies)
ISBN 1-930630-48-9

only used copies available

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Click here for a biography and all available books by Michael Longley


Wake Forest University • Winston-Salem, North Carolina