Lifting the Latch

Finely honed, thoughtful and affecting, Frank Dullaghan’s accessible poetry is increasingly assured and poised. His language is clear and elegant, but the apparent simplicity contains a depth of experience that these these poems memorable. Digging deep into memory, but eschewing sentimentality, Frank Dullaghan’s poetry is insightful, poignant, but ultimately life-affirming.

Excerpt from: ’The Day of the Robin’

Dundalk 1966
I grew to understand it often rained
inside my father’s head, that sometimes
he went under, drowned.
But that day he put out his hand
and the robin came to him, a small flutter
of surprise from the close bush.

Praise for previous collections:

＂Frank Dullaghan’s quietly spoken poems move between tenderness and terror with a humane warmth ... The language follows and embraces a wide range of affairs, touching on loved, known and dangerous things - the texture of experience - lightly, unfussily, with a lovely ear for the plain cadence that is, for most of us, the sweet-sad music of being alive.＂ George Szirtes