Ciaran Carson's series of seventy-seven sonnets begins, literally, in never-land,
'where everything is metaphor and simile', and rushes onwards to the
twelfth of never.
His alexandrine lines conduct us from revolutionary France and Ireland through Imperial
Japan, a journey accelerated by references to hallucinogenics, snatches
of traditional Irish songs, and jigs and reels.
The poppy recurs as an emblem of peace and the opium wars, as the author's
metrics hold in delicate balance the sights and second sights, metamorphoses
and disembodiments found between 'eternities and temporary halts'.
The Twelfth of Never is Ciaran Carson's most appealing book since
The Irish for No (1987). Intent on liberty, its playful narratives
and flittings offer glimpses of 'the imminent republic of the future'.
