{"id":327,"date":"2012-06-28T17:30:02","date_gmt":"2012-06-28T17:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameslawless.net\/?page_id=327"},"modified":"2017-12-21T12:19:07","modified_gmt":"2017-12-21T12:19:07","slug":"rus-in-urbe","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/?page_id=327","title":{"rendered":"Rus in Urbe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rus<\/a>In this poetry collection, Rus in Urbe<\/em>, James Lawless explores the world about him in its ruralscape and its cityscape. Sometimes his vivid glimpses are presented in English and other times in Irish. This ease with both languages enriches the collection. In The Other Half\u00a0 \/ An Leath Eile<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 I hear you adding \/in the old language<\/p>\n

… \u00c9istim leat ag comhaireamh \/ sa tsean teanga ..<\/p>\n

the words lead the reader \u00a0to the magic of the line<\/p>\n

\u2013 the soft light,<\/p>\n

…\u2018le gile s\u00e9imh trathn\u00f3na.<\/p>\n

The poems offer a welcome access into the many layers of meaning, music and magic. This duality gives the immediacy and sparseness of English on one page and\u00a0 the melody and rhythm of Irish on the opposite page. There is a wealth of imagery in the poems. In Parisian Vignettes<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 ageing lines on his face,\/ charting the route of his life.<\/p>\n

contrasts \u00a0with \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2013The young on skateboards parry the wind\/ surfing the city\u2019s waves.<\/p>\n

There are echoes of Yeats here. James Lawless presents brief and immediate looks at everyday life and transforms them into a vivid memory, with undercurrents of tension so \u00a0aptly captured in \u2013 How can I say\/ I will stay \/or I will go?<\/p>\n

The frequent presence of birds is a symbol of the movements between the rural and urban settings.<\/p>\n

Rus in Urbe<\/em> is a poetry collection that is strong in craftsmanship, sparse in words and rich in layers of meanings. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ann Egan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>…\u201cfull of lyric grace and persuasive music\u201d Pat Boran<\/strong><\/p>\n

‘This collection is very much of our time as the suburban sprawl spreads further into the Irish countryside. Lawless considers the rural and the urban and where the two intersect. Although he divides the poems into \u2018rus\u2019 and \u2018in urbe\u2019,\u00a0 the intrusion of one upon the other and the interaction between rural and urban cannot be ignored. They are in the main serious poems which are layered with meaning and which\u00a0 take their rhythm not just from speech but from music too.\u2019 Books Ireland<\/em>, September 2012.<\/p>\n

Read a sample or buy by clicking here
\nhttps:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Rus-Urbe-James-Lawless\/dp\/1500770272\/ref=la_B001JOXD96_1_27_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1513858595&sr=1-27<\/p>\n

Dublin Duchess on Rus in Urbe<\/h1>\n
Rus in Urbe by James Lawless<\/div>\n

James Lawless is the author of three novels and a study of modern poetry, as well as being the recipient of several awards. From Dublin and living in Co. Kildare and West Cork this is his first poetry collection.
\nThe title Rus in Urbe<\/em> is Latin and translates as \u2018country in the city\u2019 (rustic in urban) and is used to describe city parks such as New York\u2019s Central Park. Lawless uses this phrase to divide his collection into two parts \u2018Rus\u2019 and \u2018In Urbe\u2019, and these forty plus poems maybe reflect his own life in Dublin\/ the city and in the more rural West Cork and Co. Kildare.
\n\"\"
\nIn Part One: Rus,\u00a0the country section, the poems are about nature and its surroundings; rocks, foliage, walking observations and weather signs.\u00a0\u2019Carrying Forward\u2019 is a lovely poem, about recognition of our parents\u2019 physical traits in ourselves. It opens in a visually quite beautiful way, \u201cThe hairs of my fingers\/ are caught by the sun\/ like some spidery creatures\u201d. Observations in the garden are captured in \u2018Changing Forms\u2019, in particular a butterfly; \u201cit pirouetted and tantalised,\/ wings fluttering like eyelashes\/ on a regal mistress\u201d. The imagery is very attractive and almost seductive.<\/p>\n

The great title of \u2018The Bachelor Who Drank Poit\u00edn\u2019 is a sad poem of a life in solitude and tells of a discovery after \u201cthey beat back the briars\u201d, to find a corpse and the bottles, \u201cThey pushed in the door,\/ inhaled the putrefied air;\/ they called again\u201d. A visual feast of memory is described in \u2018Old Trains\u2019, as the speaker hears the train and recalls, \u201cmy aunt, her bag laden with\/ Crunchies, comics and stories\/ to intoxicate myth-starved minds;\u201d. But the modern train passing is a disappointment without the noise of the door banging or the steam, \u201cjust a flutter of breeze\u201d.<\/p>\n

Part Two: In Urbe opens with \u2018Ascending a Liberties Staircase in 1952\u2032. The scene is described in its sparseness; the black bannister, the bin chute and the concrete. A mother struggles up with a child and a baby in a pram, \u201cI helped my mother tilt and lift;\/ I could hear her heavy breathing,\/ each slow tortuous step its own individual,\u201d. Winner of a poetry competition, \u2018The Miracle of the Rain\u2019 is an emotive journey of two on the Santiago Pilgrim\u2019s Route- one a bare-footed believer and her companion a booted sceptic; \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of faith<\/em>, she says,\/ You must believe things to be true\/ or the world is just a place of pain.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Her pain is a hidden one, only reveling itself on their arrival as she kneels in the Cathedral, \u201cand copious tears flow out of her eyes\u201d. The speaker realises, \u201cI see the skeleton of her hand.\/ Pray to Santiago, <\/em>she says,\/ that he may cure me.<\/em>\u201d The poem is affecting and one I re-read in order to again experience its full power.<\/p>\n

\u2018Parisian Vignettes\u2019 is just that, short scenes or impressions of Paris. The liking of a fur-coated woman walking her poodle to a Degas painting is very effective and \u201cin a distant caf\u00e9: a half heard love song\u201d. But this is not a poem romanticising Paris. In Pigalle, the red-light district, \u201c\u2026a drugged girl,\/ wavering in the middle of the street,\/ remonstrates with captive motorists\u201d and in the smart vestibule of a hotel in Porte D\u2019Orleans a groomed dog waits, \u201cthe route on the pavement\/ marked by his shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

James Lawless has put together a very good collection of poetry here, encompassing many emotions and environments. Some are short and snappy but still deserve as much consideration and contemplation for their message as the longer poems. The division of two parts puts the reader into a particular mindset to receive the rural poem or the more gritty urban poetry.<\/p>\n

A REVIEW FROM DOWN UNDER<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rus in Urbe\u00a0<\/em>by James Lawless (a Dubliner who now divides his time between Kildare and Cork) consists of poems in two languages: English and Irish. Lawless is best known through his prose, having published three novels and a study of modem poetry. These are poems which are sometimes personal, sometimes a narrative of other lives or situations: poetry of recollection. The Latin of the title is made explicit in the two sections of the book: the first part,\u00a0Rus,\u00a0<\/em>is an evocation of a rural world; the second part,\u00a0In Urbe,\u00a0<\/em>deals with the urban.<\/p>\n

Lawless has a lyric gift: too often, however, he fails to fully develop it. Many of the poems end in mundane reflection, when greater intensity of thought would have extended and enriched the image:
\na place where birds
\ncircle about brazenly
\nknowing that man is trapped
\nby his own fear.\u00a0(Early Light)<\/em><\/p>\n

This lapse of imagination is a denial of poetic possibility\u2014of poetry itself, particularly when a lyric begins with promise:
\nI open the gate
\nwhich was locked for winter:
\nnow I can go in and out
\nof my spring days…\u00a0(At Last the Rain has Stopped)<\/em><\/p>\n

Lawless is not well served by a tendency towards the literally prosaic and an occasional slackness of rhythm, undesirable in the compressed form of the lyric; but this unevenness, while regrettable, confirms at least that he has the capacity (not always used) for concision and tautness of phrase. He is at his best when sparest:<\/p>\n

Ivy dying on a pier,
\nstone crumbling;<\/p>\n

the skeleton of a boat
\nsinking into sand;<\/p>\n

A poem which ends with<\/p>\n

a child digging a hole,
\ntaking away something
\ndeeper than himself.\u00a0(Subtraction)<\/em><\/p>\n

Four of the poems are in Irish (with accompanying versions in English), and are sufficiently assured in style (despite a handful of typos) to make one hope that Lawless will publish a collection in that language. The Irish language originals have an authority and music which their English versions lack:<\/p>\n

Is mar sin a ghreama\u00edonn siad le ch\u00e9ile,
\ns\u00e1sta leis an leath\u00e9an c\u00e9anna
\nag triall i dtreo na s\u00edoraIochta,
\nmar t\u00e1 an t-uisce acu
\nchun a smaointea choime\u00e1d glan
\nagus cosa do-fheicthe ag tiom\u00e1int a gcroIthe.\u00a0(Monagamas)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Colin Ryan, University\u00a0of\u00a0Melbourne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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