Out of the Blue : Poems, 1975-2001

by Dunmore, Helen

• ISBN13: 9781852245764
• ISBN10: 185224576X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-12-30
• Publisher: Dufour Editions

Summary

As in her fiction, these haunting narratives draw us into darkness, engaging our fears and hopes in poetry of rare luminosity. Dunmore's poems also cast a bright, revealing light on the living world, by land and sea, on love, longing, and loss. Out of the Blue presents a comprehensive selection from her seven previous books of poetry. It also includes a collection of completely new poems remarkable for their sensuous magic, sharp delicacy, and sureness of touch.

Table of Contents

Out of the Blue (2001)
Out of the Blue	12	(1)
The man on the roof	13	(1)
Giraffes in Hull	14	(1)
Jacob's drum	15	(1)
That old cinema of memory	16	(1)
Depot	17	(1)
A lorry-load of stuff	18	(1)
Virgin with Two Cardigans	19	(1)
Ice coming	20	(1)
Cyclamen, blood-red	21	(1)
Piers Plowman: The Crucifixion & Harrowing of Hell	22	(9)
Smoke	31	(1)
Bristol Docks	32	(2)
The spill	34	(1)
Without remission	35	(1)
The rain's coming in	36	(1)
As good as it gets	37	(1)
If only	38	(1)
Mr Lear's ring	39	(1)
Fortune-teller on Church Road	40	(1)
Sleeveless	41	(1)
The point of not returning	42	(1)
The form	42	(1)
The sentence	43	(1)
With short, harsh breaths	44	(1)
The footfall	45	(1)
The coffin-makers	46	(1)
Inside out	47	(1)
The blessing	48	(2)
From Secrets (1994)
Lemon sole	50	(1)
Christmas caves	51	(1)
That violet-haired lady	52	(1)
Whooper swans	53	(1)
Snow Queen	54	(1)
The cuckoo game	55	(1)
The butcher's daughter	56	(1)
The greenfield ghost	57	(1)
Herring girl	58	(1)
Russian doll	59	(1)
Breeze of ghosts	60	(2)
From The Apple Fall (1983)
The marshalling yard	62	(1)
A cow here in the June meadow	63	(1)
Zelda	64	(2)
The Polish husband	66	(1)
The damson	67	(1)
In Rodmell Garden	68	(1)
The apple fall	69	(1)
Pharaoh's daughter	70	(1)
Domestic poem	71	(1)
Patrick I	72	(1)
Patrick II	73	(1)
Weaning	74	(1)
Approaches to winter	75	(2)
The night chemist	77	(1)
St Paul's	78	(1)
Poem for December 28	79	(1)
Greenham Common	80	(1)
Poem for hidden women	81	(2)
If no revolution come	83	(2)
A safe light	85	(1)
Near Dawlish	86	(1)
The last day of the exhausted month	87	(1)
The deserted table	88	(1)
The writer's son	89	(1)
Ollie and Charles at St Andrew's Park	90	(1)
Winter fairs	91	(1)
In a wood near Turku	92	(1)
Landscape from the Monet Exhibition at Cardiff	93	(1)
Breakfast	94	(2)
From The Sea Skater (1986)
The bride's nights in a strange village	96	(1)
Christmas roses	97	(1)
I imagine you sent back from Africa	98	(1)
In memoriam Cyril Smith 1913-1945	99	(1)
The parachute packers	100	(2)
Porpoise washed up on the beach	102	(1)
In deep water	103	(1)
Lady Macduff and the primroses	104	(1)
Mary Shelley	105	(3)
The plum tree	108	(1)
The air-blue gown	109	(2)
My sad descendants	111	(1)
Patrick at four years old on Bonfire Night	112	(1)
The horse landscape	113	(2)
Thetis	115	(1)
In the tents	116	(1)
Uncle Will's telegram	117	(1)
Rapunzel	117	(2)
The sea skater	119	(1)
In the tea house	120	(1)
Florence in permafrost	120	(4)
Missile launcher passing at night	124	(2)
From The Ram Garden (1988)
Code-breaking in the Garden of Eden	126	(2)
Seal run	128	(2)
Wild strawberries	130	(1)
A mortgage on a pear tree	131	(1)
A pony truss on Sussex place	132	(1)
Permafrost	133	(2)
At Cabourg	135	(1)
Ploughing the roughlands	136	(1)
The land pensions	137	(1)
A dream of wool	138	(1)
New crops	139	(1)
Shadows of my mother against a wall	140	(1)
Air layering	141	(1)
The argument	142	(1)
The peach house	143	(1)
A meditation of the glasshouses	143	(1)
The haunting of Epworth	144	(1)
Preaching at Gwennap	145	(1)
On circuit from Heptonstall Chapel	146	(1)
US 1st Division Airborne Ranger at rest in Honduras	147	(1)
One more for the beautiful table	148	(1)
Lambkin	149	(2)
Dublin 1971	151	(1)
The hard-hearted husband	152	(1)
Malta	153	(1)
Candlemas	154	(1)
Pilgrims	155	(1)
An Irish miner in Staffordshire	156	(2)
From Short Days, Long Nights (1991)
Those shady girls	158	(1)
The dream-life of priests	158	(2)
Sisters leaving before the dance	160	(2)
On not writing certain poems	162	(1)
Privacy of rain	163	(1)
Dancing man	164	(2)
At Cabourg II	166	(1)
Baron Hardup	167	(1)
Nearly May Day	168	(3)
Three workmen with blue pails	171	(1)
Brown coal	172	(2)
Safe period	174	(1)
Big barbershop man	175	(1)
The dry well	176	(1)
Heron	177	(1)
One yellow chicken	178	(1)
Sailing to Cuba	179	(1)
Off the West Pier	180	(1)
Winter 1955	181	(1)
Rinsing	182	(1)
To Betty, swimming	183	(1)
In Berber's Ice Cream Parlour	184	(2)
Not going to the forest	186	(1)
Lutherans	187	(3)
From Recovering a Body (1994)
To Virgil	190	(1)
Three Ways of Recovering a Body	191	(1)
Holiday to Lonely	192	(1)
Poem in a Hotel	193	(1)
The Bike Lane	194	(1)
Drink and the Devil	195	(1)
Ahvenanmaa	196	(1)
Rubbing Down the Horse	197	(1)
You came back to life in its sweetness	198	(1)
Heimat	199	(1)
In the Desert Knowing Nothing	200	(1)
Poem on the Obliteration of 100,000 Iraqi Soldiers	201	(1)
The Yellow Sky	202	(1)
Getting the Strap	203	(1)
Adders	204	(1)
The conception	205	(1)
Scan at 8 weeks	206	(1)
Pedalo	207	(4)
Beetroot Soup	211	(1)
The Diving Reflex	212	(1)
Bathing at Balnacarry	213	(1)
Boys on the Top Board	214	(1)
Sylvette Scrubbing	215	(1)
Babes in the Wood	216	(1)
Cajun	217	(1)
Skips	218	(1)
Time by Accurist	219	(1)
The Silent Man in Waterstones	220	(1)
The Wardrobe Mistress	221	(1)
When You've Got	222	(3)
From Bestiary (1997)
Candle poem	225	(1)
At the Emporium	226	(1)
Next door	226	(1)
He lived next door all his life	227	(1)
The surgeon husband	228	(1)
Fishing beyond sunset	229	(1)
Hare in the snow	229	(1)
Need	230	(2)
Sometimes in the rough garden of city spaces	232	(1)
I should like to be buried in a summer forest	233	(1)
The scattering	234	(1)
All the things you are not yet	235	(1)
Diving girl	236	(1)
A pretty shape	237	(1)
Viking cat in the dark	238	(1)
Baby sleep	239	(1)
Frostbite	240	(1)
Basketball player on Pentecost Monday	241	(1)
Tiger lookout	242	(1)
Tiger Moth caterpillar	243	(1)
Hungry Thames	244	(1)
The wasp	244	(1)
Little Ellie and the timeshare salesman	245	(1)
Bouncing boy	246	(1)
Ghost at noon	247	(1)
Greek beads	248	(1)
Tea at Brandt's	249	(1)
We are men, not beasts	250	(2)
Index of Titles and First Lines	252