The Way to Work

Be they delicate couplets, which have become a signature form, or the extended narratives at which he is adept, Tom French’s poems are immediately recognizable as his and his only.

Deceptively simple and straightforward, they weave family memories and recollections seamlessly with wider histories. From his tender imaginings of an outdoor nativity or his record of a christening to his evocations of war and its pity (in particular World War I and Ireland’s War of Independence), his reports arehonest and convincing, his gaze unflinching. Local idioms feature prominently. People’s names, place names, field names and nicknames recur. There are elegies for musicians; tunes abound.

Self-questioning in his search for identity, the quiet reflective tones of much of this work are offset by his ‘1916’ which, a century on, is generous in the options it offers the reader. Tom French’s poetry continues to win admirers, at home and further afield.