Belfast Twilight is a collection of haikai (or haiku sequences) that create kaleidoscopic montages that take the reader into various worlds – Belfast’s docklands at twilight; windswept islands off the west of Ireland; life in 1980s London squats; and the suburban haven of the People’s Park in Dún Laoghaire. Within the form of the haiku, Liam Carson delicately unfurls narratives of love and loss; and finds the transcendent within the transient.
Liam Carson is a watchful observer in constant motion, covering the ground, crossing into and out of a mosaic of territories, into and out of phases of a life. From a whole scene he distils an essence. This is the important work of the haiku – powerfully directed attention, language pared, the found world and its range of resonance pinned in a few words, in a few lines. It’s agile and sturdy enough to encompass the Troubles of his native Belfast, family life, nature rapture, and punk. Out of individual poems here, out of the many sequences, each with its specific focus, Carson gives us a whole interlocking world – fresh, compelling, familiar and properly strange.
Paula Meehan
Liam Carson’s haiku, it could be said, ‘spark flintstones in the dark’. Powerful, heart-wrenching and inspiring.
Gabriel Rosenstock
Belfast Twilight is a veritable trip – of delight, sorrow and reminiscence – which takes us to all four compass points of Ireland, across the pond and beyond. Using impressive control, exquisite imagery, humour and pathos, Carson confirms his status as an exhilarating new voice in the world of haiku.
Maeve O’Sullivan
Praise for call mother a lonely field by Liam Carson
‘A tale from a dark and troubled place—Belfast in the ’70s and ’80s. Whatever light there is in the book comes from love and language. Liam Carson’s call mother a lonely field is a short but intense portrayal of his parents and the divided city where they made their lives. It will leave you enriched no matter your origins.’
Bernard MacLaverty
‘Raymond Carver used to say one good short story was worth any number of bad novels. So with Liam Carson’s short pearl of a book — worth any number of heavy tomes…The book scoops up hot embers and implosive elements of a time when language became a kind of lightning rod and secret preserve for the spirit.’
—Tess Gallagher
‘Like the city he grew up in, Liam Carson’s memoir of life in Belfast winds like a tangled web of streets, dreams, cultures and philosophies, where every page, pavement and street corner offer another dab of colour to a fascinating picture … His description of his mother’s Alzheimer’s disease and eventual death are blessed with clarity, gentleness and a heart-wrenching sadness. His memories of shared moments with his father are beautifully rendered … Carson’s greatest achievement is recycling a complex mix of emotions and ideas on language into a deeply moving read.’
—Michael Foley, The Sunday Times
‘For such a tiny book, it is crammed with dozens of stories. Dreams are recounted, the plotlines of adventure books paraphrased and analyzed, poems and song lyrics reprinted, folk stories and urban myths retold. This is a small book, and a hauntingly simple one. call mother a lonely field is an immensely pleasurable book, and a valuable addition to the canon of Irish autobiography.’
—Conor O’Callaghan, The Irish Times
‘call mother a lonely field evokes a particular time and dramatic place, as it gets to grips with a society falling apart, all the time making a judicious distinction between archaic loyalties and civilized values. It is written with a vivid economy and understated discernment.’
—Patricia Craig, Times Literary Supplement
‘A unique poetic meditation on an Irish-speaking family which draws fine threads between language and history and the life-saving properties of a wide-ranging selection of narratives, including family lore, folk songs, comic books and the heroics of mythology which underpin the Irish language. Liam Carson pours an astonishingly concentrated draught of wisdom into one slim volume.’
—Martina Evans
‘Carson presents the sights, the sounds, the smells, the essential character of the Falls Road of the period … His mother’s descent into Alzheimer’s is described with a tenderness that is almost unbearable. Every mother should have a son like this—and indeed it is a lucky child who had parents like his. Liam Carson has done them both proud in this affectionate, haunting, highly readable and, at times, poetic memoir.’
—Maurice Hayes, Irish Independent
Liam Carson is the founder and director of the IMRAM Irish-Language Literature Festival, which stages multi-media literary productions that fuse poetry, prose, visual art and music to promote writing in Irish. He is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir call mother a lonely field, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize in 2013. He is a haiku poet, and his work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Autumn Moon Journal, Comhar, First Frost, hedgerow: a journal of small poems, The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Presence, seashores, Tiny Words, and Wales Haiku Journal. Belfast Twilight is his first haiku collection.
Belfast Twilight
Belfast twilight
a sound of breaking glass
by the gentle river
Belfast twilight
clouds of starlings pulse
over the Lagan
Belfast twilight
sounds of kick-the-tin
from the street
Belfast twilight
a bonfire’s ashes
in the vacant lot
Belfast twilight
the ice cream van’s song
from a hidden street
Belfast twilight
the rattle of Lambeg drums
from distant hills
*
Faithful Departed
autumn
wearing my brother’s shoes
i carry his coffin
winter walk
along the peaty river
to my nephew’s grave
my face reflected
in the bus window
my father
a murmuration of snow
in the street light
souls of the departed
yellow tulips
at the dead man’s door
his name unknown
*
Cork Haiku
Sacred Heart ablaze
in a dark shop window
Cork in the rain
sleeping bags hang
from an empty shop’s door
Cork in the rain
the Virgin prays
in a roadside grotto
mist on the mountain
scent of oil
the cool darkness
of a country garage
flies on a dead mouse
prayer flags
in a sea breeze
dandelions nod
in a sea breeze
the voice of Buddha
