*****

ColmTóibínwas born in Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford in 1955. He studied at University College Dublin and lived in Barcelona between 1975 and 1978. When he returned to Ireland in 1978 he worked as a journalist for In Dublin, Hibernia and The Sunday Tribune, becoming features editor of In Dublin in 1981 and editor of Magill, Ireland’s current affairs magazine, in 1982. He left Magill in 1985 and travelled in Africa and South America. One of Ireland’s most highly praised contemporary novelists, Vinegar Hill, published by Carcanet earlier this year, is his first collection of poetry.

ColmTóibín‘s Vinegar Hill reviewed by Omar Sabbagh

Vinegar Hill by ColmTóibín. £12.99. Carcanet Press. ISBN: 978-1800171619

I have no clue
Where I am, what
Bed this is.

But I will get up
And find you,
Alive, real, now,

And the morning starts,
E-mails, the newspaper.
I carry the night

All…