A Northern Spring is the SPRING CHOICE OF THE POETRY BOOK SOCIETY

Readers of Frank Ormsby's first book, A Store of Candles (1977), noted 'the linguistic and emotional candour, the poetic skill, the sureness of the form, and the way Ormsby skirts sentimentality.'

His new collection, A Northern Spring, adds to his already evident gifts a surprising imaginative range.

At the heart of this book is an album of thirty six poems that deal with World War II and, specifically, the experiences of American soldiers at home, on the mainland of Europe and in the North of Ireland.

In this sequence, the author's native province becomes a province of the mind in which G.I.s and refugees co-exist with victims and survivors of the present 'Troubles'. This tightly integrated volume explores the ironies, horrors and consolations of war and community in amusing and moving ways.