The Whole Shebang or A Tundish of Trivia at a Lopsided Crossroads

Frank Callery has been writing poetry since the 1970s. He is the recipient of three important awards for poetry, the William Allingham Award, the Gerald Manly Hopkins Award and the Irish Public Service Poetry Award. He has been Moderator of the Howth Poetry Workshop; a board member of Poetry Ireland and An Cumman um Haiku — the Irish Haiku Society. His work is wide-ranging: from the lyrical moments of personal observation to the more acerbic public observations. This collection brings together many of his fine poems dealing with love, loss, hope and despair; celebration and homage. There are quiet lyrical cameos such as: Retreat or The Hanging Gardens, more formal poems typified by San Marino, Resorts or The Japanese Gardens. But there are also the comic moments that reside in such poems as: Profiles from Cabaret or A Night at the Opera. Callery’s touch is assured and honest, and his craft is deeply observed. In Poems such as: The Stone of the Heart, In Cloth of Gold, In Gown of Green, he celebrates the joy of grandchildren while in his crafted and sincere In Memoriam poem for Seamus Heaney: And Now the Kind Earth, he sets homage in its prayerful niche.