The Irish Literary Times

The Orchard

How I have carried you,
the rough cheek of my grief
against yours,

unaware until now
that I have lumbered
these days pale and red...

Many of the poems in this enchanting and enchanted first collection are set in the early light of morning, the half-light of evening or the firelight of a damp day. Many occur by water’s edge — quayside, shore or riverbank – and abound in memorable images: the storm unfolding its rope of cloud, a speaker catching ‘the minnow of your reflection’. By conjuring seasons and landscape — and, in particular, expanses of the West of Ireland — Michelle O’Sullivan becomes a meteorologist of emotional states. Grief is a place to be departed from. Threats are at bay: ‘and I don’t think anything terrible / is going to happen yet’.