Lorcán Black, an Irish poet now living in London, is a Pushcart prize and Best of the Net nominee, and has been longlisted and shortlisted for the Two Sylvias prize and the Paris literary prize respectively. His debut collection, Rituals, was published by April Gloaming Publishing in 2019.

The poems in Black’s latest collection inhabit some dark spaces. Taking his cue from Greek and Roman mythology, Biblical narrative and more recent events in history, such as London during lockdown, the London Bridge attack and the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, his poems are multifaceted gems of confession, compassion and blessing. The range of his subject matter is impressive: whether he is writing about Aphrodite, European butterflies, toxic chemicals, the murder of the Neoplatonist mathematician Hypatia, Salome before Herod Antipas, or Old Croghan Man, the well-preserved Irish Iron Age bog body now on display in the National Museum of Ireland, Black’s poems appeal to the intellect and satisfy us with their integrity.

Before reaching the table of contents, Black offers up an explanation of the title of his collection with some helpful definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary. ‘Strange’ is defined as “unusual or surprising; difficult to understand or explain” or something “not previously visited, seen, or encountered; unfamiliar or alien”. ‘Husbandry’ is defined as “the care, cultivation, and breeding of crops and animals” or “the management and conservation of resources, or one’s means”. His poems cover all of these territories in one degree or another. At the other end of the book, at the foot of the acknowledgments, Black comments: “We all engage in a bit of strange husbandry in our life, an odd way of managing our resources, however you interpret resources.”

If I had to choose one poem from this collection to take with me on a hypothetical desert island it would be ‘The Golden Hour’. Defined as the period of day just before the sun sets or after it rises, when the light atmosphere is very colourful and when photographers often do their best work, it can also in very different circumstances mean the time immediately following birth when it comes to mother-baby bonding or the term often used in emergency care to suggest that a patient must receive definitive treatment within the first 60 minutes from the time of injury in order to survive. Black’s elusive poem is a snapshot in time, whose last image haunts him with its ethereal quality:

 

     The last time I saw you:

     the breeze full of orange blossom,

     you, standing in sun – in haze –

     out in the middle of a road, in Crete,

     A dishrag hurriedly slung over one shoulder

     & a hand clamped to the soft nest of hair

     at the back of your head …

 

So much emotion is contained in the final two lines:

 

     The heart is an abcess

     waiting to burst –

 

Some of the finest poems in this collection are extended narratives written in response to specific works of art: ‘Io Transformed into a cow, is handed to Juno by Jupiter,’ dated 1638, by David Teniers the Elder, and ‘The Descent from the Cross,’ dated 1633, by Rembrandt. Black captures the essence of each painting, managing to convey in words, insofar as we can imagine, the original artistic intention. 

Moving to more recent events, ‘Hazmat’ gives us a chilling account of the Covid-19 pandemic. The title is an abbreviation for ‘hazardous materials’. The scene is London 2020. The poem opens as follows:

 

     The lungs of this city are burning.

     Outside an ambulance expels three medics:

 

     minutes later they move a man between them

     like a chess piece.

 

     From our terrace I see the thin, frail rage

     of his chest rising & falling with each step.

 

The poem extends its scope to all who have contracted Covid and to all who bear the loss of loved ones during this difficult time.

‘Bucha’ is a powerful poem about the invasion of Ukraine. The opening stanzas convey with deadly precision, the shock and outrage of a surprise attack:

 

     You have to remember, at some point

     someone was taking butter out of a butter dish

     when the windows blew in –

 

     and perhaps it was fine china,

     then suddenly it was bricks –

     smoke, fire, human bone.

 

Disturbingly, the final line reads “and now there is no real end to this poem”.

This is a very fine collection. Black’s memorable lines and images will stay with you long after you have put the book down. Highly recommended.

 

Lorcán Black, Strange Husbandry, Seren, £10.99