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Rus in Urbe <\/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, Rus, <\/em>is an evocation of a rural world; the second part, In Urbe, <\/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: <\/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, the skeleton of a boat A poem which ends with<\/p>\n a child digging a hole, <\/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, chun a smaointea choime\u00e1d glan<\/p>\n agus cosa do-fheicthe ag tiorn\u00e1int a gcroIthe. (Monagamas)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Colin Ryan \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 University\u00a0of\u00a0Melbourne<\/p>\n Rus in Urbe 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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=935"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jameslawless.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\na place where birds
\ncircle about brazenly
\nknowing that man is trapped
\nby his own fear. (Early Light) <\/em><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>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… (At Last the Rain has Stopped)<\/em><\/p>\n
\nstone crumbling;<\/p>\n
\nsinking into sand;<\/p>\n
\ntaking away something
\ndeeper than himself. (Subtraction)<\/em><\/p>\n
\ns\u00e1sta leis an leath\u00e9an c\u00e9anna
\nag triall i dtreo na s\u00edoraIochta,
\nmar t\u00e1 an t-uisce acu<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"