The Ice Age by Paul Farley

The Ice Age

Paul Farley

Subjects as apparently mundane as phonebooks, diaries and flies are given a new lease of life in Paul Farley's exquisitely detailed poems. He writes nostalgic poetry which is never sentimental but can be gently ironic. The Ice Age makes a good starting point from which to explore contemporary poetry.

Extract

You are the plainest moon. Forget all others:
shivering in pools, or spoken to when drunk,
that great Romantic gaze of youth; shed all
sonatas, harvests, Junes, and think instead
of how your phases turn here in a diary:
stripped of sunlight, surface noice and seas
you move unnoticed through the months, a bare linen
achieving ink blackness, emptying again ...

from Diary Moon

Parallels
  • Do You Remember the First Time, music album by Pulp
  • The Boy From the Chemist Is Here To See You by Paul Farley