{"id":6898,"date":"2016-11-27T19:46:57","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T18:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898"},"modified":"2016-12-01T17:14:48","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T16:14:48","slug":"tom-french-the-way-to-work-gallery-press-e12-50-pb-e18-50-hb-reviewed-by-ken-evans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898","title":{"rendered":"Tom French, The Way to Work<\/em> (Gallery Press, \u20ac12.50), reviewed by Ken Evans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patrick Kavanagh said that, \u2018to know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime\u2019s experience.\u2019 In Tom French\u2019s fourth collection from Ireland\u2019s Gallery Press, The Way to Work<\/em>, the poet homes in (I use the verb advisedly) on a way of life in rural Ireland, that seems almost familiar, to both poet and reader, even as it is slowly disappearing.<\/p>\n

The sense of reading something familiar also comes from any reading, however cursory, of the Irish poetry of the last 60 years, whether the monuments of Mahon, Heaney, and Longley, to Paulin, O\u2019Donoghue, O\u2019Driscoll et al, as well as the particularly Irish tropes – of history and history memorialized, that these and other poets riff upon (this collection, published in the centenary year of \u2018The Rising\u2019, features as a coda, an uncharacteristic, but excoriatingly savage and sardonic poem of French\u2019s, called \u20181916\u2019 \u2013 worth the price of the collection alone).<\/p>\n

But French reminds us that 1916 was also the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, where it may be forgotten by Englanders that many Irish young men died pointlessly (as well as yes, English, and Welsh, Scots, Indians, Canadians and so on.)<\/p>\n

Those young soldiers were victims of that quintessentially Irish subject-matter \u2013 the fact, elevated almost to mythic status \u2013 of diaspora, departures, leavings, osmosis into and from other cultures and societal norms; of spread compass points (French\u2019s titles include, \u2018North of the Village\u2019; \u2018East\u2019; \u2018West\u2019; \u2018From Home\u2019; \u2018Beyond Carrigart\u2019); a sense of Place, both found and lost; of gaining and losing bearings; and always, the trope of naming.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Among the Stones\u2019, the poet is observing a sculpture in the National Gallery of Ireland.\u00a0 Art itself, including by implication, poetry, becomes a kind of \u2018naming\u2019 or \u2018possession-ing\u2019, a re-visioning of things. To delineate and describe is to \u2018make known something.\u2019 Places are brought into being, made \u2018real\u2019, by their naming, in the litany-like 9 line middle section of the first stanza of the poem, where centre-justified on the page, there is just a list of places, woven musically together: \u2018Derryquin\/Ballinvoher\/Martramane\/Lisselane.\u2019 It is this almost mystical association with the naming of places in the land, that is so characteristic of the island\u2019s poetry (an historical-cultural facet Derek Mahon himself has written extensively about.) In \u2018Calgary,\u2019 about a family tragedy, the prayer they may say for him is almost an incantation of \u2018the names of fields he knew and never said \u2013 \u2026Pairc Glas. The Lios Field. Pairc na Coillte\/The Furze Brake\u2026\u2019 and so on for a further two lines to near the end the stanza.<\/p>\n

Other than to the Somme, French rarely departs in subject-matter from scenes of this much-loved purlieu of a lush but harsh Irish farming community life, even if the \u2018the dung spreader\u2019 is now \u2018manacled\/by brambles in the haggard,\u2019 and the path to the village is a \u2018strip of high ground\/where spring grass gets it hard to grow.\u2019 (\u2018North of the Village.\u2019)<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, when he does venture afield, as in \u2018A Glass of Tea\u2019, with its chilling democrat Barack Obama quote \u2013 \u2018We did whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks,\u2019 French\u2019s gentle lyricism and simplicity of line seem all the more powerful for his understated, elliptical, ironic approach:<\/p>\n

He dreams of drinking with his torturers.
\nThey have learned so much from one another.
\nBecause they are his guests and he\u2019s their host<\/p>\n

he takes great pains to welcome them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other hands, the obvious double-entendres of tortured and torturer learning from each other, and the victim making \u2018great pains\u2019 to welcome his tormentors could seem forced, but the very genteelness of French\u2019s banale contextualising of a visit from torturers as a meeting over tea, is striking, and makes the reader both queasy and uneasy, as we surely should be.<\/p>\n

French, a poetry multi-award winner and professional librarian, clearly contextualises his work in the \u2018field\u2019 of his chosen vocations. \u2018The Hare\u2019 is a poem about a car hitting, or a close encounter, with a wild animal, itself a trope of US poetry since at least William E. Stafford\u2019s, \u2018Travelling in the Dark\u2019 or Bishop\u2019s \u2018The Moose\u2019 (and which has also been transmigrated to Scotland by John Burnside). I find it a worthy addition to this canon: the \u2018matter-of-factness\u2019 and tenderness, its very pared-back \u2018slightness\u2019 (as with a hare compared to a ton of car), lends extra \u2018weight\u2019 to the pathos, where the driver, \u2018bore him across our road\/for the scavengers, supporting\u2026like a newborn\u2019s, his body\/in my hands \u2013 the head, the neck.\u2019 With French\u2019s delicate handling of words, their heft, we feel and see that snapped neck lolling, sacred, mythical, but road-kill.<\/p>\n

The Way to Work<\/em> is available to buy from The Gallery Press<\/a>.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patrick Kavanagh said that, \u2018to know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime\u2019s experience.\u2019 In Tom French\u2019s fourth collection from Ireland\u2019s Gallery Press, The Way to Work, the poet homes in (I use the verb advisedly) on a way of life in rural Ireland, that seems almost familiar, to both poet and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nTom French, The Way to Work (Gallery Press, \u20ac12.50), reviewed by Ken Evans - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tom French, The Way to Work (Gallery Press, \u20ac12.50), reviewed by Ken Evans - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Patrick Kavanagh said that, \u2018to know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime\u2019s experience.\u2019 In Tom French\u2019s fourth collection from Ireland\u2019s Gallery Press, The Way to Work, the poet homes in (I use the verb advisedly) on a way of life in rural Ireland, that seems almost familiar, to both poet and […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-27T18:46:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-12-01T16:14:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Manchester Review\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898\",\"name\":\"Tom French, The Way to Work (Gallery Press, \u20ac12.50), reviewed by Ken Evans - The Manchester Review\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-11-27T18:46:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-12-01T16:14:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/e6deb0374609919f6e86f6ee1defe8cc\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=6898#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tom French, The Way to Work (Gallery Press, \u20ac12.50), reviewed by Ken Evans\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#website\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"description\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/e6deb0374609919f6e86f6ee1defe8cc\",\"name\":\"The Manchester Review\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/wp-includes\/images\/blank.gif\",\"caption\":\"The Manchester Review\"},\"description\":\"The Manchester Review was founded in 2008 and is published by the Centre for New Writing at The University of Manchester. 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