DAMIAN SMYTH Writing Things

1 There was a silver and reed band. My father, who delivered oil to farms as a living, played clarinet in it and wrote out the parts for the various instruments. Say a person regarded as the ‘slowest’ in town was interested in belonging to the band. They might end up playing the triangle. In another episode, someone would be entrusted with the bass drum. There was a uniform, a peaked cap, silver buttons, epaulets, tassels – there was, in a word, respect. The sense of this w

MO’D: At what point in your career did you realise that a focus on your home town of Downpatrick would be important to your work? DS: It...

I first encountered Damian Smyth in Market Street (2010) a dozen years ago. Utterly new to poetry, I resented being up language creek...

Irish Street is a perceptive and assured contemplation of place and relationships Irish Street follows Damian Smyth’s pamphlet and six...

IF THE defining cultural moment of the last fifty years in Northern Ireland is discussed, it will be hard to get around the address given...

LOOK, I'M not here to do literary criticism and I'm not here to be a barrier between you and the readers this afternoon. But it has to be...