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Poetry book of the month: The Kabul Olympics by John McAuliffe – review

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The Irishman’s fifth collection shows great sensitivity to language and detail and is at its witty best on domestic matters

John McAuliffe is Irish but many of the poems in his sympathetic fifth collection are set in Manchester, where he teaches at university. One of the most involving of them is City of Trees, set on 22 May 2017– the date gives you a clue to the content. It begins in the tone of a carefree journal, remembering a meeting at the town hall. From there, we briefly accompany the Irishman on a bicycle through Manchester, noting “the Curry Mile’s neon influence–/its last two Irish pubs, the Clarence/and the Whitworth refitted now as a Christian café/and a chrome-and-glass shisha bar.” What is striking about McAuliffe, in this poem and throughout the collection, is that he never over-edits life for the sake of poetry – he would cycle any distance, it seems, to avoid being loftily selective or unreliably sublime.

 But one thing gives way to another and terror arrives without warning, turning up as suddenly in the poem as in life. Seeing the news of the arena bombings on television, he is alert to everything. The council leader is wearing “the same shirt/I’d seen him in twelve hours earlier” and the mayor is promising “‘business as usual’ – a not exactly steely line”. (McAuliffe’s sensitivity to language never goes off duty.) But it is further on that the poem comes into its own as he describes the footage of the bomber:

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