Poetry: Dean Browne, Billy Ramsell & Molly Twomey

Dean Browne arrives at the After Party with the maturity and style of an altogether more seasoned poet. In a debut collection of standout and stand-alone poems, each tests the boundaries of its unique universe.Dean is a mesmeric teller of strange tales, imaginings that can seem origamically contained within the compressed dimensions of a poem. A leg sets off on a long train journey; a Parisian alley cat is launched into space; earthbound lovers attempt to connect while their inner lives prove unbridgeable. Losses are mourned: two poets elegized here – Charles Simic and the late Donegal poet Matthew Sweeney – might offer a fingerpost of sensibilities, though Dean’s significant talent is distinctly his own. After Party introduces a beguiling, resonant new voice, a raised eyebrow and fidelity to the image – sometimes carried along the tightrope much further than seems possible. In poems that are both death-haunted and youthful, and thrumming with a delicious dark humour, Dean brings a much-needed injection of the surreal – or the surreal-ish as he might prefer to say – to Ireland’s rising generation.

Billy Ramsell’s Render plunges the reader into the vibrant setting of Barcelona in the second half of the twentieth century. A compelling character study, the book is presented as the collected works of a fictional poet: Alberto Cenas, the lonely scion of a wealthy Catalan family. Taken individually, Render’s poems offer piercing insights into the exuberance of youth, the disillusionment of early adulthood, inherited trauma, creativity, ageing and finality. Collectively, the book delivers the immersive experience of a concept album or an existentialist film, creating a complex portrait of a strange and sympathetic figure.

Molly Twomey’s second collection, Chic to be Sad, continues a young woman’s report from the front lines of experience. These fearless poems, rich in simile (a smile ‘wide / as a long weekend’) and striking detail, rest in ordinary settings — an ‘Online Staff Meeting’, an Aldi car park in Youghal. Framed between work that centres on a fire in her family home, this book displays an even wider range than her debut — from ‘My Brother’s Friends Draw Dicks’, ‘The Mechanic Speaks to My Boyfriend Over My Head’ and ‘Why We Don’t Have Kids’ it reaches to the Guggenheim Museum in Venice and considerations of art. There’s a constant sense of the aftermath of illness and the poems never shy from physical and emotional vulnerability. Brave in its honesty and directness, Chic to be Sad confirms a special gift and presence in Irish poetry before reaching its wise conclusion: ‘There is so much to know, / so much I want you to hear.’

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