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Tongues of Fire
A remarkable first collection by an important new poet
In this collection, Seán Hewitt gives us poems of a rare musicality and grace. By turns searing and meditative, these are lyrics concerned with the matter of the world, its physicality, but also attuned to the proximity of each moment, each thing, to the spiritual.
Here, there is sex, grief, and loss, but also a committed dedication to life, hope and renewal. Drawing on the religious, the sacred and the profane, this is a collection in which men meet in the woods, where matter is corrupted and remade. There are prayers, hymns, vespers, incantations, and longer poems which attempt to propel themselves towards the transcendent.
In this book, there is always the sense of fragility allied with strength, a violence harnessed and unleashed. The collection ends with a series of elegies for the poet’s father: in the face of despair, we are met with a fierce brightness, and a reclamation of the spiritual. ‘This is when / we make God, and speak in his voice.’
Paying close attention to altered states and the consolations and strangeness of the natural world, this is the first book from a major poet.
In this collection, Seán Hewitt gives us poems of a rare musicality and grace. By turns searing and meditative, these are lyrics concerned with the matter of the world, its physicality, but also attuned to the proximity of each moment, each thing, to the spiritual.
Here, there is sex, grief, and loss, but also a committed dedication to life, hope and renewal. Drawing on the religious, the sacred and the profane, this is a collection in which men meet in the woods, where matter is corrupted and remade. There are prayers, hymns, vespers, incantations, and longer poems which attempt to propel themselves towards the transcendent.
In this book, there is always the sense of fragility allied with strength, a violence harnessed and unleashed. The collection ends with a series of elegies for the poet’s father: in the face of despair, we are met with a fierce brightness, and a reclamation of the spiritual. ‘This is when / we make God, and speak in his voice.’
Paying close attention to altered states and the consolations and strangeness of the natural world, this is the first book from a major poet.
80 pages, Paperback
First published April 23, 2020
About the author
Seán Hewitt
17 books176 followersSeán Hewitt's debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire (2020), won the Laurel Prize in 2021. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide (2022), won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022. He lives in Dublin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 87 reviews
November 2, 2020
Poetry is such a deeply personal form that I do sometimes find it difficult to rate. However, Hewitt's small collection of poems were exactly the sort of salve I needed in 2020.
Beautifully evocative, Hewitt blends the beauty of nature with personal experience in a pensive, almost mischievous manner, resulting in poems that, although simple, are wonderfully powerful and linger beautifully after reading.
I particularly liked the poem "Dryad" - one of the longer entries in the anthology and one that I think really nicely captures the celebration of nature contrasted against the grounded experiences and interesting sexual undertones that the author has weaved through.
I did find a few of the poems a bit less intoxicating than the others, and there are a few entries to this tiny anthology that I didn't personally resonate with - something which in such a small collection is a shame as they detracted from the overall experience.
Still, a beautiful selection filled with wind strewn heaths and woodlice-dripping plants, the language of trees and the subtle touch of human experience against nature. Very beautiful indeed.
4 stars.
Beautifully evocative, Hewitt blends the beauty of nature with personal experience in a pensive, almost mischievous manner, resulting in poems that, although simple, are wonderfully powerful and linger beautifully after reading.
I particularly liked the poem "Dryad" - one of the longer entries in the anthology and one that I think really nicely captures the celebration of nature contrasted against the grounded experiences and interesting sexual undertones that the author has weaved through.
I did find a few of the poems a bit less intoxicating than the others, and there are a few entries to this tiny anthology that I didn't personally resonate with - something which in such a small collection is a shame as they detracted from the overall experience.
Still, a beautiful selection filled with wind strewn heaths and woodlice-dripping plants, the language of trees and the subtle touch of human experience against nature. Very beautiful indeed.
4 stars.
July 5, 2021
At the opening of Theories and Apparitions Mark Doty writes about a pipistrelle. Well, actually, he writes about his view of a bat compared to Charles Bennet's poetical view of a bat. USA v UK. Whitman v Wordsworth. Eventually, the bat disappears from view as Doty turns it into an aesthetic object and reduces a natural living form to a dead symbol of lyric v meditation. Doty is Doty is Doty. A taxidermist poet. Sean Hewitt has acknowledged a debt to Doty and his tendency to symbolise nature floods over into Tongues of Fire. In Hewitt's words, "trees, or birds, are artefacts of history, biology, weather, all those things we might think of as the mind of the world." Very in tune with Hopkins and instress/inscape. But is nature an "artefact"? An object "made" by a human being? It is a viewpoint I cannot concede and one that produces some odd effects. "Barn Owls in Suffolk" is an an accomplished poem, but some words strike oddly. The faces of barn owls have a "strange geometry". Do they? The adjective seems to have been chosen to add mystery to the poem, not to describe a barn owl accurately -- to develop a sense of "omen". In other words, to make the bird become a symbol of something to man rather than be themselves. Hewitt's lines imagine the poise of the bird perfectly, but the conclusion of the poem cannot rest with that: the owl lifts a "living thing" from the earth. A vole, mouse, shrew, fledgling bird? No, an abstraction that establishes the owl as a "strange" creature, a harbinger of doom. Something similar occurs in "Dryad". A woodland is evoked, one that becomes a place where Hewitt's seeks men, and a natural habitat slowly transforms into another artefact of the human mind, a place where trees stand like men "making slow/laboured sighs" as if they are in tune with sex and human trunk and tree trunk are one. The artificiality here, as with Doty, makes very pretty poetry. But the art is too obviously art. "Lapwings", according to another poet, is " a poem whose natural beauty is all Clare." Quite the opposite is true, for Clare would have related the behaviour of the bird, its plumage, the cryptic eggs, their colour and texture, captured it in earthly diction; not dug up something as vague as "cheee-o-wit of something like life whipping upwards."
Having said this, however, there is much to enjoy in Hewitt and he certainly can write evocatively. "Vestige," "Epithalamium," and 'Wild Garlic" are magnificent lyrics. And he handles elegy with grace and honesty -- "Tongues of Fire" is a testament to his humanity and filial love. At his best, he shows a wonderful ear for music and emotional cadences. And he certainly know how to move an image and develop a poem. I have quibbled, but also read the book three times without stopping except for reflection -- that is rare!
Having said this, however, there is much to enjoy in Hewitt and he certainly can write evocatively. "Vestige," "Epithalamium," and 'Wild Garlic" are magnificent lyrics. And he handles elegy with grace and honesty -- "Tongues of Fire" is a testament to his humanity and filial love. At his best, he shows a wonderful ear for music and emotional cadences. And he certainly know how to move an image and develop a poem. I have quibbled, but also read the book three times without stopping except for reflection -- that is rare!
December 1, 2020
In the title poem, the arboreal fungus from the cover serves as “a bright, ancestral messenger // bursting through from one realm to another” like “the cones of God, the Pentecostal flame”. This debut collection is alive with striking imagery that draws links between the natural and the supernatural. Sex and grief, two major themes, are silhouetted against the backdrop of nature. Fields and forests are loci of meditation and epiphany, but also of clandestine encounters between men: “I came back often, // year on year, kneeling and being knelt for / in acts of secret worship, and now / each woodland smells quietly of sex”. Hewitt recalls travels to Berlin and Sweden, and charts his father’s rapid decline and death from an advanced cancer. A central section of translations of the middle-Irish legend “Buile Suibhne” is less memorable than the gorgeous portraits of flora and fauna and the moving words dedicated to the poet’s father: “You are not leaving, I know, // but shifting into image – my head / already is haunted with you” and “In this world, I believe, / there is nothing lost, only translated”.
Readalikes: Physical by Andrew McMillan and If All the World and Love Were Young by Stephen Sexton
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Readalikes: Physical by Andrew McMillan and If All the World and Love Were Young by Stephen Sexton
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
April 16, 2020
Tongues of Fire a collection of poetry that focuses on viewing life through nature, on physicality and reality but also the sacred and untouchable, and on grief, loss, and illness. The poems are mostly short lyric poems, weaving together ideas of nature, belief, and personal connection. What is particularly vivid as you read the collection is the ways in which the natural world is returned to, and offers an escape from the world, and how the poems show this through moments and details of plants and settings as ways of encapsulating feelings, from sex and desire to sadness and grief. This felt particularly notable in poems like 'Adoration', which moves from a nature walk to a Berlin club and back again, and it really gives a sense of how the personal can also be part of something much larger about life and earth.
These poems feel like an escape into the tiny details of outside, a kind of mechanism of looking for the natural and the meaning when things seem random or difficult. This was a great collection to sit down with and become immersed in the senses and physicality, but also the emotions of the poems.
These poems feel like an escape into the tiny details of outside, a kind of mechanism of looking for the natural and the meaning when things seem random or difficult. This was a great collection to sit down with and become immersed in the senses and physicality, but also the emotions of the poems.
October 27, 2020
Right off the bat: Mr Hewitt does not fill the void left by Heaney, Montague and Boland, as one journalist wrote. Maybe he will in 20-30 years time, after the bodies aren't quite so warm and after he's produced more than one pamphlet and one collection. Certainly there is great promise, but please don't fall for the hype that has raised this book beyond what it actually achieves. This is very well crafted lyric fare and, as such, comparisons to practitioners of the Irish lyric tradition are warranted. (But let's remember Hewitt was born in raised in England, although he has strong familial and professional connections with Ireland.)
It is a collection that might have been written 30-40 years ago, save for the gay subject matter of a few of these poems -- most notably 'Dryad', which truly is a fantastic poem that raises its subject matter (gay cruising in a wood) to a brave and defiant act that borders on the mythic. Stunning. And it's when there is some daring exhibited that these poems really come alive. But so often it is the easy route that Hewitt takes in terms of the same old Oirsh and Ye-Olde-English lyric sensibility. As beautifully crafted as they are, when compared to the exciting risks taken by young Irish/English poets -- and when we consider the explosion of risk-taking winging its way across the Atlantic from N0rth America -- I'm left hoping that this fledgling talent decides to jump off a few more cliffs in order to see if he can soar. I suspect he can, even if he crashes a few times. And, after all, sometimes it is the crashes that are more interesting and point to what needs changing in order to progress successfully.
So, a very interesting debut collection, which deserves a read. But question the hype.
It is a collection that might have been written 30-40 years ago, save for the gay subject matter of a few of these poems -- most notably 'Dryad', which truly is a fantastic poem that raises its subject matter (gay cruising in a wood) to a brave and defiant act that borders on the mythic. Stunning. And it's when there is some daring exhibited that these poems really come alive. But so often it is the easy route that Hewitt takes in terms of the same old Oirsh and Ye-Olde-English lyric sensibility. As beautifully crafted as they are, when compared to the exciting risks taken by young Irish/English poets -- and when we consider the explosion of risk-taking winging its way across the Atlantic from N0rth America -- I'm left hoping that this fledgling talent decides to jump off a few more cliffs in order to see if he can soar. I suspect he can, even if he crashes a few times. And, after all, sometimes it is the crashes that are more interesting and point to what needs changing in order to progress successfully.
So, a very interesting debut collection, which deserves a read. But question the hype.
April 28, 2022
In anticipation of this poet's upcoming release of his memoir, I decided to pick up his poetry and I'm thrilled to have discovered this queer Irish writer in his hauntingly powerful first book of poetry. His intrinsic Irish sensibility combined with an almost surrealist interpretation of nature have me transfixed and excited to see what's next for this gifted young artist.
The poems take the reader on an odyssey from pastoral metaphors to mythical retellings and, finally, a heartrending depiction of the poet's grief for his dying father. Sprinkled within these uniquely stylized worlds, Hewitt includes subtly but distinctly queer perspectives on each of these more ubiquitous themes. His writing is often opaque but still emotionally and aesthetically acute.
Tongues of Fire is a sprawling display of the poet's unique and mesmerizing lens with which he transmutes his love, longing and grief. The language is powerful and profound without becoming cloying, supercilious or succumbing to melodramatic indulgence. Every poem feels concise and inspired. I relished the experience of drifting into Hewitt's lush and languid land of melancholy.
The poems take the reader on an odyssey from pastoral metaphors to mythical retellings and, finally, a heartrending depiction of the poet's grief for his dying father. Sprinkled within these uniquely stylized worlds, Hewitt includes subtly but distinctly queer perspectives on each of these more ubiquitous themes. His writing is often opaque but still emotionally and aesthetically acute.
Tongues of Fire is a sprawling display of the poet's unique and mesmerizing lens with which he transmutes his love, longing and grief. The language is powerful and profound without becoming cloying, supercilious or succumbing to melodramatic indulgence. Every poem feels concise and inspired. I relished the experience of drifting into Hewitt's lush and languid land of melancholy.
January 2, 2024
"... but even now
I could not say which was the truer thought:
the cats or the lost child; and I think again
of calling home that night from Sweden,
of hearing my mother's voice and telling her
what you had done (tablets, rum, calling
to say goodbye), and how I made
an animal sound, a noise so primitive
that I felt inhuman, how I cried
like something new-born
because I had found myself
in a world where all abstract things
(death, fear, loss) had bloomed in my mind,
and what is a parent to a child but god
who we turn to when we still believe
that everything is fixable,..."
I could not say which was the truer thought:
the cats or the lost child; and I think again
of calling home that night from Sweden,
of hearing my mother's voice and telling her
what you had done (tablets, rum, calling
to say goodbye), and how I made
an animal sound, a noise so primitive
that I felt inhuman, how I cried
like something new-born
because I had found myself
in a world where all abstract things
(death, fear, loss) had bloomed in my mind,
and what is a parent to a child but god
who we turn to when we still believe
that everything is fixable,..."
December 17, 2023
Gifted, virtuosic; a stunning work of poetry worthy of everyone's time.
April 24, 2020
“Leave me always // in these waste spaces, where / my head is tilted up to God / and I am a wild thing, glowing.” So ends Seán Hewitt’s ‘Adoration’, one of forty exquisite, tender, exultant and exalted poems in his debut collection, Tongues of Fire. Fifteen poems, ten of which are in the first section, were first published in Hewitt’s iridescent pamphlet Lantern, though many appear as if anew, from subtle singular word changes in such poems as ‘Leaf’ and ‘Clock’ to three evocative new lines in ‘Dormancy’.
As for the twenty-five new poems, they represent a veritable feast for the senses, many just as steeped in nature and the divine as the earlier poems from Lantern, many of them moving deeper into these territories and more, charting an unparalleled psychic topography, a survey of sex and want and love and grief, and how time transforms these things and the individual, their spirit. In ‘Ghost’ he writes “there is always the soul waiting / at the door of the body, asking to be let out.” Throughout these poems Seán does just that, letting out his soul, inviting ours to let themselves free, for a short while.
The second section of poems, a partial translation of Buile Suibhne, present a dark narrative steeped in curses and madness and violence, that somehow insists upon devotion and beauty, the cries of the heron, and the necessity of companionship, a fact which hits closer to home than ever in ‘Suibhne Is Wounded, And Confesses’: “but things are different now.”
Seán Hewitt may be our generation’s answer to/lovechild of John Clare and Gerard Manley Hopkins, especially seen in ‘Vestige’, which directly quotes from Hopkins’ diary, and Lapwings, a poem whose natural beauty is all Clare and whose essence, rhythms and phrases evoke Hopkins at his ‘Windhover’ best: “embers gashed... the sound was dropped, / caught, then dashed to earth.”
As the poems move towards their end they acquire an increasingly acute taste of grief, as his “pre-elegies” for his father ask us to consider such things that we may never be able to fathom: “Are we all / just wanting to see ourselves / changed, made unearthly?” he asks in ‘Petition’, and ‘“How am I to wear / his love’s burning mantle?”, the final lines of ‘In The Bode-Museum’.
The final poems, ‘Tree of Jesse’, ‘Ta Prohm’ and the titular ‘Tongues of Fire’, invoke the most gorgeous and devastating blend of hope and loss, so the final few stanzas of this book - which proclaim “Our life is a theophany” and that “there is nothing lost, only translated” - are some of the most transcendent lines to ever be committed to verse. In the image of “yellow fruiting / thorns”, “the Pentacostal flame”, the collection’s title and its final poem define its search for the soul, spiritual communication through the natural world, which joins us to one another, to the earth we have come from, and to whatever place we are “translated” to when we go.
Hewitt’s poems are, to borrow a line from ‘St John’s Wort’, “a light to illumine / the dark caves of your eyes”. Today I am illumined, and what a genuine blessing that seems to be. This is already one of the most vital collections of recent time and it was only published yesterday. It’s the first book I read cover-to-cover twice in one go, and I can’t wait to go back for a third time, and a fourth, and more.
As for the twenty-five new poems, they represent a veritable feast for the senses, many just as steeped in nature and the divine as the earlier poems from Lantern, many of them moving deeper into these territories and more, charting an unparalleled psychic topography, a survey of sex and want and love and grief, and how time transforms these things and the individual, their spirit. In ‘Ghost’ he writes “there is always the soul waiting / at the door of the body, asking to be let out.” Throughout these poems Seán does just that, letting out his soul, inviting ours to let themselves free, for a short while.
The second section of poems, a partial translation of Buile Suibhne, present a dark narrative steeped in curses and madness and violence, that somehow insists upon devotion and beauty, the cries of the heron, and the necessity of companionship, a fact which hits closer to home than ever in ‘Suibhne Is Wounded, And Confesses’: “but things are different now.”
Seán Hewitt may be our generation’s answer to/lovechild of John Clare and Gerard Manley Hopkins, especially seen in ‘Vestige’, which directly quotes from Hopkins’ diary, and Lapwings, a poem whose natural beauty is all Clare and whose essence, rhythms and phrases evoke Hopkins at his ‘Windhover’ best: “embers gashed... the sound was dropped, / caught, then dashed to earth.”
As the poems move towards their end they acquire an increasingly acute taste of grief, as his “pre-elegies” for his father ask us to consider such things that we may never be able to fathom: “Are we all / just wanting to see ourselves / changed, made unearthly?” he asks in ‘Petition’, and ‘“How am I to wear / his love’s burning mantle?”, the final lines of ‘In The Bode-Museum’.
The final poems, ‘Tree of Jesse’, ‘Ta Prohm’ and the titular ‘Tongues of Fire’, invoke the most gorgeous and devastating blend of hope and loss, so the final few stanzas of this book - which proclaim “Our life is a theophany” and that “there is nothing lost, only translated” - are some of the most transcendent lines to ever be committed to verse. In the image of “yellow fruiting / thorns”, “the Pentacostal flame”, the collection’s title and its final poem define its search for the soul, spiritual communication through the natural world, which joins us to one another, to the earth we have come from, and to whatever place we are “translated” to when we go.
Hewitt’s poems are, to borrow a line from ‘St John’s Wort’, “a light to illumine / the dark caves of your eyes”. Today I am illumined, and what a genuine blessing that seems to be. This is already one of the most vital collections of recent time and it was only published yesterday. It’s the first book I read cover-to-cover twice in one go, and I can’t wait to go back for a third time, and a fourth, and more.
May 18, 2020
Full of lyric meditations on nature, as well as explorations of loss, despair and sexuality, this is a memorable debut. Sean Hewitt has a gift for evoking the beauty and subtlety of nature, such as the bark of an oak tree, or the colours and shapes of a fungus. He also translates sections from the Medieval Irish poem, Buile Suibhne, previously translated by Heaney, which is itself a poem that describes the ever-changing natural world, as well as the ways in which madness can be soothed, and reflected, by nature. Hewitt has a gift for using an image of the natural world to explore a personal grief or moment of deep emotion, such as in Kyrie, in which "the darker shapes of two cats / mating" bring him to a moment "so close to life, to its truth of violence / that my mind has wired out" and he goes on describe how, in moments of profound pain or fear, we continue to long for our parents, "what is a parent to a child but a god". In Adoration, one of my favourite poems in the collection, Hewitt also draws on the colours and changes of the natural world: " a gold / lobe on the oak, leaking // in the mist", which brings him to memories of a club in Berlin, "its vaulted columns, the steel bars / and long-stemmed lilies, and the heat / scouring our skin." Here, the author is brought to a place of life, where "bloom and spirit [are] unspooling". Like nature, this place of sexuality and lust, brings the narrator to a place "soft and secret and unseen". In the same stanza, the narrator admits "I knew / I would kneel to you - blood, yes, / spine, lips." Hewitt travels a great distance in this poem, between moments within a relationship, as well as between countries -- Ireland, Berlin -- and places -- a club, a road, a heath -- and times -- summer, winter -- but remains in control. The poem carries us through tensions of love and lust, to the tartness of a blackberry, and to a place of contemplation, and, yes, adoration. There is something so moving about the narrator admitting, "I would kneel to you": an acceptance of how devotion makes us vulnerable.
At his best, Hewitt travels far within his work and explores the world with originality and depth. Some poems were not so successful, I found, because Hewitt sacrifices the rawness and messiness of emotions and bodies in order to create a poem that is aesthetically beautiful. There were places, particularly as Hewitt describes grief at the loss of a father, where the poems didn't convey the weight and intensity of pain. However, this is an impressive first collection, and one that I would recommend.
At his best, Hewitt travels far within his work and explores the world with originality and depth. Some poems were not so successful, I found, because Hewitt sacrifices the rawness and messiness of emotions and bodies in order to create a poem that is aesthetically beautiful. There were places, particularly as Hewitt describes grief at the loss of a father, where the poems didn't convey the weight and intensity of pain. However, this is an impressive first collection, and one that I would recommend.
August 24, 2022
This is a book of poems. Of invocations and summoning. Of prayers to and within nature. Of raising trees from words, many trees, and then kneeling under them ready to pray or beg or praise.
“Later still, the baby would not latch,
and I came back to this holly, unhardened
by the sun, unable to turn the light
into strength. May it keep its whiteness,
may it never learn the use of spikes;
or, in time, when a crown is made of it,
may the people approach one by one
to witness how a fragile thing is raised.”
“But then, in each of us, a wound must be made
or given - there is always the soul waiting
at the door of the body, asking to be let out.”
And there really is a lot of soul-letting here, in the invoked images and in the space left between the lines for rapid gulps of air. With his poems, Seán Hewitt creates a forest and then lets it speak its own verses about everything it witnesses: pain inflicted on oneself and others, love, both physical and in the heart, and spells to bind them all together.
“Later still, the baby would not latch,
and I came back to this holly, unhardened
by the sun, unable to turn the light
into strength. May it keep its whiteness,
may it never learn the use of spikes;
or, in time, when a crown is made of it,
may the people approach one by one
to witness how a fragile thing is raised.”
“But then, in each of us, a wound must be made
or given - there is always the soul waiting
at the door of the body, asking to be let out.”
And there really is a lot of soul-letting here, in the invoked images and in the space left between the lines for rapid gulps of air. With his poems, Seán Hewitt creates a forest and then lets it speak its own verses about everything it witnesses: pain inflicted on oneself and others, love, both physical and in the heart, and spells to bind them all together.
March 29, 2024
Impresionante. Ni siquiera sé qué tanto opinar respecto a esta colección tan magistral de poemas, porque intentar diseccionarlo sería un disservice. Es una experiencia digna de vivirse. Point blank period.
July 17, 2020
I haven’t read much contemporary Irish poetry, and nature poetry isn’t usually at the top of my list, but when a poet writes this beautifully, categories don’t matter. Hewitt takes us with him as he wanders in the woods, finding himself, peace, and inspiration. The poems are hushed, whispers, a balm for our jarring nerves during the pandemic.
There was a section of poems, I believe translations, of an Irish folk figure Buile Suibhne that would probably mean more to those who know the legend. The rest of the book had universal appeal.
Trees are the stars of many of Hewitt’s poems. Here are a few passages I especially admired.
From “Leaf”
“For woods are forms of grief
grown from the earth. For they creak
with the weight of it.
For each tree is an altar to time.”
From “Clocks”
…and though I love you and I know
there is no such thing as held time,
this tree seems suddenly like a stillness,
a circle of quiet air, a place to stand
now that I have had to leave
and cannot think where I might go next.”
There was a section of poems, I believe translations, of an Irish folk figure Buile Suibhne that would probably mean more to those who know the legend. The rest of the book had universal appeal.
Trees are the stars of many of Hewitt’s poems. Here are a few passages I especially admired.
From “Leaf”
“For woods are forms of grief
grown from the earth. For they creak
with the weight of it.
For each tree is an altar to time.”
From “Clocks”
…and though I love you and I know
there is no such thing as held time,
this tree seems suddenly like a stillness,
a circle of quiet air, a place to stand
now that I have had to leave
and cannot think where I might go next.”
January 2, 2023
Though young, Seán Hewitt writes with such maturity that is hard to find these days. From memories of younger days to the Irish tale of Buile Suibne and the loss of a beloved one. I must say that the synopsis of the book is quite precise, and I'd just add that these poems talk to each other through elements and beautiful pictures of nature in its wonders.
Leaf
For woods are forms of grief
grown from the earth. For they creak
with the weight of it.
For each tree is an altar to time.
For the oak, whose every knot
guards a hushed cymbal of water.
For how the silver water holds
the heavens in its eye.
For the axletree of heaven
and the sleeping coil of wind
and the moon keeping watch.
For how each leaf traps light as it falls.
For even in the nighttime of life
it is worth living, just to hold it.
Leaf
For woods are forms of grief
grown from the earth. For they creak
with the weight of it.
For each tree is an altar to time.
For the oak, whose every knot
guards a hushed cymbal of water.
For how the silver water holds
the heavens in its eye.
For the axletree of heaven
and the sleeping coil of wind
and the moon keeping watch.
For how each leaf traps light as it falls.
For even in the nighttime of life
it is worth living, just to hold it.
March 29, 2020
I spent a cosy afternoon in the company of Tongues of Fire. Hewitt’s debut collection gave me a sense of how he views the rhythms of nature and loss; the ways in which humans are capable of admiring/trespassing on the natural world.
The middle section of the collection is comprised of part translations of a middle-Irish tale named Buile Suibhne.
Throughout the collection, the poems that moved me most were those that explore sexuality, the frailty of loss and the comfort of nature.
The middle section of the collection is comprised of part translations of a middle-Irish tale named Buile Suibhne.
Throughout the collection, the poems that moved me most were those that explore sexuality, the frailty of loss and the comfort of nature.
March 10, 2023
This book of poetry is absolutely beautiful. Hewitt amazes me with every line. Nuances and subtleties, hidden meanings, motifs, and connections throughout. There is so much material to ponder. His poetry is gentle, melancholic, and thought-provoking. It is Art.
December 6, 2021
and each time I half-expect
to meet someone among the trees
or inside the empty skeleton
of the rhododendron, and I wonder if I have ruined
these places for myself, if I have brought
each secret to them and weighed the trees
with things I can no longer bear.
There's a quiet, solemn beauty to these poems which eerily complements the heartrending energy they exude. Emotions fluctuate and blend, sometimes to the point where despair bleeds into tenderness and vice versa; what stays constant is the sacred dialogue with nature: trees, soil, bodies of water are ever the healers, the translators of this emotional tumult. No matter how deep they might plunge into darkness and grief, Seán Hewitt's poems always bring gentleness and warmth to the surface. An undercurrent of love and sincerity that made me miss home, and my parents, and the woodlands. And many more.
August 25, 2024
A book by someone so clearly in love with trees, with all their forms, in love with the effect they have on him, willing to explore the way they’ve sculpted his life.
Willing to look at them deeply and at length, to give them the time to tell their secrets.
Especially so the cycle about Buile Suibhne, that, to me, seemed to be about the solace you can find in trees, how madness and sadness lose their sharp definiteness in such company.
So often they seem to hover and settle on the cusp of love and loss, between understanding and total wonderment, knowing that is where life exists too. Life speaks to itself in a language we don’t understand.
He turns the woods into a mystical talisman of life itself, speaking to itself in a language we can’t understand. So rich with things we cannot know
Willing to look at them deeply and at length, to give them the time to tell their secrets.
Especially so the cycle about Buile Suibhne, that, to me, seemed to be about the solace you can find in trees, how madness and sadness lose their sharp definiteness in such company.
So often they seem to hover and settle on the cusp of love and loss, between understanding and total wonderment, knowing that is where life exists too. Life speaks to itself in a language we don’t understand.
He turns the woods into a mystical talisman of life itself, speaking to itself in a language we can’t understand. So rich with things we cannot know
September 27, 2020
People have reconnected to the natural world during lockdown in many ways, some are there for the fresh air and to get out away from the limits of our walls, others are there to walk the dog and some have found what has been missing from our lives of screens and 24-hour notifications.
This first collection from Seán Hewitt views all of life’s ups and downs through the physical elements of nature. But in these poems, he goes far deeper into our psyche and our intangible response to the things that we see around us. There are poems on birds, trees and dryads, ethereal beings that are said to come from oak.
There is more to this that just poems about the natural world, they touch on the sacred and the profane, the pure time and those stolen moments among lovers. His words add an important spiritual dimension, linking himself to the natural world.
this tree seems suddenly like a stillness
a circle of quiet air, a place to stand
now that I have had to leave
and cannot think where I might go next
I really liked this and I can’t exactly say why that is. Not for any specific reason, it is just a collection that is immersive and gets under your skin in all sorts of ways. The centre part is taken from the Irish tale, Buile Suibhn which I liked, but not as much as the rest of the book. His language is simple and charged with power and draws deep from the natural world. Stunning cover too.
Three Favourite Poems
Barn Owls in Suffolk
Dormancy
Wild Garlic
This first collection from Seán Hewitt views all of life’s ups and downs through the physical elements of nature. But in these poems, he goes far deeper into our psyche and our intangible response to the things that we see around us. There are poems on birds, trees and dryads, ethereal beings that are said to come from oak.
There is more to this that just poems about the natural world, they touch on the sacred and the profane, the pure time and those stolen moments among lovers. His words add an important spiritual dimension, linking himself to the natural world.
this tree seems suddenly like a stillness
a circle of quiet air, a place to stand
now that I have had to leave
and cannot think where I might go next
I really liked this and I can’t exactly say why that is. Not for any specific reason, it is just a collection that is immersive and gets under your skin in all sorts of ways. The centre part is taken from the Irish tale, Buile Suibhn which I liked, but not as much as the rest of the book. His language is simple and charged with power and draws deep from the natural world. Stunning cover too.
Three Favourite Poems
Barn Owls in Suffolk
Dormancy
Wild Garlic
July 4, 2021
Poetry is difficult to rate as I feel it’s a very personal experience for each reader and what you will engage with or not depends on you and sometimes even can vary between reads. There were some poems in this I really enjoyed, especially as links with mythology and fable were made, however overall it didn’t massively stand out as a collection. Though who knows if I read it again, it might.
September 1, 2020
Favourites: leaf, Oak Glossary, moors, tree of jesse
March 28, 2020
Absolutely stunning poetry, dealing with themes of nature, relationships and drawing inspirations from the poet's own personal experience. One of the next greats, a must read!
April 10, 2022
Seán Hewitt’s Tongues of Fire contains many poems connecting nature, especially trees, with personal events and emotions. It leaves the reader with many unanswered questions.
*
Leaf — Is this, the first poem, the second part of the last poem? Is the collection a cycle? — Hewitt’s imagery tends to be rather idiosyncratic. Whether ‘woods are forms of grief grown from the earth’ might be questioned or accepted. This collection is full of such examples where images and metaphors feel strange, if not misplaced. At the end of the day, it often comes down to a matter of taste.
*
Dryad — In a forest the lyrical ego ponders on the nature of trees, while remembering how he gave head to another man under trees. There are three problems with this piece: Trees are said to be ‘an act / of kneeling to the earth, a way of bidding / the water to move’, whereas in the first poem trees are likened to grief. Now, maybe trees are all the things one wants them to be, but after a full list of things it simply begins to feel random. Secondly, the sex scene might be the coldest one in poetry history. The only thing we know about the other guy is that he has a deeper voice and evokes the idea he might be a killer. Thirdly, why is it that gay oral sex is paralleled to trees and then a line follows, stating ‘the children knocking branches for the showers / of seed’? The whole piece doesn’t feel quite right.
*
Häcksjon — A simple poem about jumping into a lake. Hewitt is at his best when he doesn’t dwell in overloads of weird metaphors, but stays within a clear scenery.
*
Kyrie — There’s bathos, and melodrama, and an anticlimactic end.
*
Dormancy — It’s hard to guess what some of these poems are even about. Not because they are mysterious themselves, but because information is just left out. Who is in the hospital? Why is this person sexless and unable? What does it mean that the lyrical ego sowed himself like a wych elm?
*
Psalm — Just as indecipherable as Dormancy. What happened under this bridge?
*
Wild Garlic — Beautiful. Shallow, yet beautiful.
*
Ilex — Reads like a soulless writing exercise.
*
Adoration — As in Dryad a lyrical ego once again finds himself in a wood, once again thinks about fellatio (this time in a Berlin club), and finally compares himself to a mushroom. Despite being an interesting piece to follow all the way through, as a reader one has to accept a lot of weird choices or clumsy phrasing and ultimately disregard the schematic approach to comparisons.
*
Evening Poem — combines the peaceful tone of a haiku and the down-to-earth dignity of Heaney. Not Hewitt’s most original, but one of his better pieces.
*
Tree of Jesse & Ta Prohm — The last poems of the collection centre around the death of the protagonist’s father. Premortal grief and lack of religion are their themes. Both poems seem to prepare for the grand finale, the eponymous poem.
*
Tongues of Fire — The very last poem might be regarded as the collection’s sole contender to be called a masterpiece. Thoughts surrounding the afterlife are brought forward in an artistic manner that is both worthwhile and graced by some sort of beauty.
*
Tongues of Fire is an interesting collection worthy of discussion with poems ranging from unconvincing to quite enjoyable and, at last, deeply personal and to some extent ponderous.
*
Leaf — Is this, the first poem, the second part of the last poem? Is the collection a cycle? — Hewitt’s imagery tends to be rather idiosyncratic. Whether ‘woods are forms of grief grown from the earth’ might be questioned or accepted. This collection is full of such examples where images and metaphors feel strange, if not misplaced. At the end of the day, it often comes down to a matter of taste.
*
Dryad — In a forest the lyrical ego ponders on the nature of trees, while remembering how he gave head to another man under trees. There are three problems with this piece: Trees are said to be ‘an act / of kneeling to the earth, a way of bidding / the water to move’, whereas in the first poem trees are likened to grief. Now, maybe trees are all the things one wants them to be, but after a full list of things it simply begins to feel random. Secondly, the sex scene might be the coldest one in poetry history. The only thing we know about the other guy is that he has a deeper voice and evokes the idea he might be a killer. Thirdly, why is it that gay oral sex is paralleled to trees and then a line follows, stating ‘the children knocking branches for the showers / of seed’? The whole piece doesn’t feel quite right.
*
Häcksjon — A simple poem about jumping into a lake. Hewitt is at his best when he doesn’t dwell in overloads of weird metaphors, but stays within a clear scenery.
*
Kyrie — There’s bathos, and melodrama, and an anticlimactic end.
*
Dormancy — It’s hard to guess what some of these poems are even about. Not because they are mysterious themselves, but because information is just left out. Who is in the hospital? Why is this person sexless and unable? What does it mean that the lyrical ego sowed himself like a wych elm?
*
Psalm — Just as indecipherable as Dormancy. What happened under this bridge?
*
Wild Garlic — Beautiful. Shallow, yet beautiful.
*
Ilex — Reads like a soulless writing exercise.
*
Adoration — As in Dryad a lyrical ego once again finds himself in a wood, once again thinks about fellatio (this time in a Berlin club), and finally compares himself to a mushroom. Despite being an interesting piece to follow all the way through, as a reader one has to accept a lot of weird choices or clumsy phrasing and ultimately disregard the schematic approach to comparisons.
*
Evening Poem — combines the peaceful tone of a haiku and the down-to-earth dignity of Heaney. Not Hewitt’s most original, but one of his better pieces.
*
Tree of Jesse & Ta Prohm — The last poems of the collection centre around the death of the protagonist’s father. Premortal grief and lack of religion are their themes. Both poems seem to prepare for the grand finale, the eponymous poem.
*
Tongues of Fire — The very last poem might be regarded as the collection’s sole contender to be called a masterpiece. Thoughts surrounding the afterlife are brought forward in an artistic manner that is both worthwhile and graced by some sort of beauty.
*
Tongues of Fire is an interesting collection worthy of discussion with poems ranging from unconvincing to quite enjoyable and, at last, deeply personal and to some extent ponderous.
August 2, 2023
Seán Hewitt really do be taking the spot as my favorite little leprechaun
August 2, 2022
I was prompted to read this after finishing Hewitt's gorgeous memoir All Down Darkness Wide. The autobiographical detail gleaned from it really deepens your appreciation for the poetry (although I suppose strictly speaking, the poetry ought to stand alone), and his lyrical eye for a turn of phrase remains in clear evidence.
The first half of this collection, I would say, I really loved. It opens with verses that blend his early life in Liverpool, his sexuality and his faith. He makes strong use of natural imagery, and uses religious language to make the irreligious feel sacred. He then writes very movingly about his experiences when a partner, who fell into depression and was hospitalised. It is in this context that he retells elements of the Buile Suibhne (Suibhne's Frenzy - an Irish folktale), which is a fantastic endeavour. The poem in which Hewitt takes on the perspective of Suibhne's wife, begging to be allowed to join him in the wilds and to live with him in his madness, if only to be with him, was beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure.
The back half of the collection, however, left me pretty cold. The focus returns to the natural world, in a way that doesn't feel particularly inspired (seeing too blooms next to each other: one about to blossom, the other already failing, prompts perfectly adequate observations about one relationship ending as another starts), and despite reading the collection whilst on holiday in some gorgeous English countryside, I found it extremely well expressed, but ultimately unengaging.
The religious imagery returns, becoming increasingly prominent, but with less impact. In one poem, he compares washing in a river to... bathing at Lourdes, which, almost felt like a non-metaphor (and indeed, that entire memory is far better explored in All Down). An extended poem about visiting a Berlin sex club and people shagging in a dark room, is described as if it were a church and people taking communion. It felt like it was reaching for profundity but instead managed to be a bit teenage. Then the poetry moved on to meditations on the poet's loss of his father; undoubtedly poignant for the author, but the thoughts contained within just failed to connect on some level. (But then again, I've not yet lost my father. I may return to these verses in later years and regret my thoughts here.)
A really talented writer and worth a read, but when I go back for another pass I'll probably skip the final third.
The first half of this collection, I would say, I really loved. It opens with verses that blend his early life in Liverpool, his sexuality and his faith. He makes strong use of natural imagery, and uses religious language to make the irreligious feel sacred. He then writes very movingly about his experiences when a partner, who fell into depression and was hospitalised. It is in this context that he retells elements of the Buile Suibhne (Suibhne's Frenzy - an Irish folktale), which is a fantastic endeavour. The poem in which Hewitt takes on the perspective of Suibhne's wife, begging to be allowed to join him in the wilds and to live with him in his madness, if only to be with him, was beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure.
The back half of the collection, however, left me pretty cold. The focus returns to the natural world, in a way that doesn't feel particularly inspired (seeing too blooms next to each other: one about to blossom, the other already failing, prompts perfectly adequate observations about one relationship ending as another starts), and despite reading the collection whilst on holiday in some gorgeous English countryside, I found it extremely well expressed, but ultimately unengaging.
The religious imagery returns, becoming increasingly prominent, but with less impact. In one poem, he compares washing in a river to... bathing at Lourdes, which, almost felt like a non-metaphor (and indeed, that entire memory is far better explored in All Down). An extended poem about visiting a Berlin sex club and people shagging in a dark room, is described as if it were a church and people taking communion. It felt like it was reaching for profundity but instead managed to be a bit teenage. Then the poetry moved on to meditations on the poet's loss of his father; undoubtedly poignant for the author, but the thoughts contained within just failed to connect on some level. (But then again, I've not yet lost my father. I may return to these verses in later years and regret my thoughts here.)
A really talented writer and worth a read, but when I go back for another pass I'll probably skip the final third.
March 25, 2023
[rating = A-]
At Uni, I was enraptured by Hewitt's "Lantern." And though this debut poetry collection has been out for a bit, I finally bought it and read it in about three days. There is a clarity to his work that doesn't sink into obviousness. He talks about nature and sexuality, but also emotional struggles and faith (in a way that doesn't hit you over the head with a bible; he's Irish after all, had to sneak into his work somehow).
There are some gorgeous poems in this work. The ones up-front are from his poetry chapbook, and it was interesting to read them again after a few years of separation. The "Buile Suibhne" poems are less interesting, though how they came about is laudable. Anything experimental like mixing loose translations with original additions is always wonderful and creates a dialogue between old and new.
"I did not / realize how far I had walked you / into my life, until your hand let go." is Hewitt at his best. There is a shift in tone and, slightly, of subject matter as the last third or so begins. He talks about his father's death, which is tender. But I was hoping that he'd also dive into what his father had given him while alive (this is always something I'm interested in, the heritage, the influences passed on). And though his shorter poems are lovely, his longer ones (which remind me a bit of American poet Mark Doty) aren't as precise, aren't as tightly woven. But, in all, this collection is wonderful and well worth the read. One only wishes Hewitt was better known (like Ocean Vuong) outside of literary or poetry circles, as he deserves the recognition.
At Uni, I was enraptured by Hewitt's "Lantern." And though this debut poetry collection has been out for a bit, I finally bought it and read it in about three days. There is a clarity to his work that doesn't sink into obviousness. He talks about nature and sexuality, but also emotional struggles and faith (in a way that doesn't hit you over the head with a bible; he's Irish after all, had to sneak into his work somehow).
There are some gorgeous poems in this work. The ones up-front are from his poetry chapbook, and it was interesting to read them again after a few years of separation. The "Buile Suibhne" poems are less interesting, though how they came about is laudable. Anything experimental like mixing loose translations with original additions is always wonderful and creates a dialogue between old and new.
"I did not / realize how far I had walked you / into my life, until your hand let go." is Hewitt at his best. There is a shift in tone and, slightly, of subject matter as the last third or so begins. He talks about his father's death, which is tender. But I was hoping that he'd also dive into what his father had given him while alive (this is always something I'm interested in, the heritage, the influences passed on). And though his shorter poems are lovely, his longer ones (which remind me a bit of American poet Mark Doty) aren't as precise, aren't as tightly woven. But, in all, this collection is wonderful and well worth the read. One only wishes Hewitt was better known (like Ocean Vuong) outside of literary or poetry circles, as he deserves the recognition.
November 20, 2020
Tongues of Fire...
•
“Even if the prince himself led me
through halls banked with riches,
I’d rather sleep in a dark tree-hollow
with you, my husband, if you’d let me.
If all the men of Ireland and of Scotland
stood undressed in a line before me,
I’d choose to stay here with you
and live on water and on watercress.”
Tongues of Fire by Sean Hewitt was the second shortlisted book and also the second poetry collection I read for this year’s Young Writer of the Year award. Oh my goodness, I am just wow... I feel like that’s what I have been saying all the way through. Wow.
Tongues of Fire is a collection of poems that transform our views of the world through nature, beliefs and emotions. Each poem touches upon different themes, love, sexuality, masculinity, madness, loss, grief and peace. The beauty of all Sean Hewitt’s poems lays in the quietness, the gentleness and the greatness of all that will be, all that can be and all that will never be.
My favourite poem in this collection is Buile Suibhne. The way Sean Hewitt translated this ancient tale was incredibly haunting. The longing, the loneness and the madness! It was so affecting. But it was the last poem that got me in tears. I won’t say much more as it is extremely personal but It hit too close to home.
I just want to congratulate Sean for this stunning debut collection. Wow two books in and I am already in a pickle as to how am I ever going to pick a winner for this year’s award?! They are incredible!
What’s the last poem you read or do you tend to read poetry?
•
•
•
“Even if the prince himself led me
through halls banked with riches,
I’d rather sleep in a dark tree-hollow
with you, my husband, if you’d let me.
If all the men of Ireland and of Scotland
stood undressed in a line before me,
I’d choose to stay here with you
and live on water and on watercress.”
Tongues of Fire by Sean Hewitt was the second shortlisted book and also the second poetry collection I read for this year’s Young Writer of the Year award. Oh my goodness, I am just wow... I feel like that’s what I have been saying all the way through. Wow.
Tongues of Fire is a collection of poems that transform our views of the world through nature, beliefs and emotions. Each poem touches upon different themes, love, sexuality, masculinity, madness, loss, grief and peace. The beauty of all Sean Hewitt’s poems lays in the quietness, the gentleness and the greatness of all that will be, all that can be and all that will never be.
My favourite poem in this collection is Buile Suibhne. The way Sean Hewitt translated this ancient tale was incredibly haunting. The longing, the loneness and the madness! It was so affecting. But it was the last poem that got me in tears. I won’t say much more as it is extremely personal but It hit too close to home.
I just want to congratulate Sean for this stunning debut collection. Wow two books in and I am already in a pickle as to how am I ever going to pick a winner for this year’s award?! They are incredible!
What’s the last poem you read or do you tend to read poetry?
•
•
August 18, 2020
This book is extremely confusing to me. The poems are simple and heartfelt, but not intentionally so. Many of the poems do not follow the standard grammar of English e.g. "For woods are forms of grief." - what is the word "for" doing here, other than to create a poetic atmosphere? This poet has been lauded across the UK as the "next big thing" but this book is pedestrian at best. When poets like Bhanu Kapil and Will Harris are publishing books at the same time as you, you need to step your game up. This poet writes in a similar way to Andrew McMillan, however their debut collections are very different.
I read a few newspaper reviews that claimed this book was something new but it is in fact a simplistic copy of many other books. For example: the poem about the poet's mother in the greenhouse is an exact replica of Seamus Heaney's poem about potato peeling but without actually referencing the poem it is mimicking. I am not a fan of Heaney, so it stands to reason that maybe I would not like this, but this book has hundreds of good reviews. Maybe I just don't get it. Or it's just not for me.
I read a few newspaper reviews that claimed this book was something new but it is in fact a simplistic copy of many other books. For example: the poem about the poet's mother in the greenhouse is an exact replica of Seamus Heaney's poem about potato peeling but without actually referencing the poem it is mimicking. I am not a fan of Heaney, so it stands to reason that maybe I would not like this, but this book has hundreds of good reviews. Maybe I just don't get it. Or it's just not for me.
August 20, 2020
When Seán Hewitt is good, he is really, really good and, for the most part, these poems live up to the accolades bestowed on them. He is a laureate of trees, woods and forests. To spend time with these poems is to be transplanted into a dappled timberland - ie "I can hear the soft, transmuted/aches of growing and easing back/to form, the forest creaking awake/around me. Then nothing but mutterings - the sun bending its neck to look through trees..." ('I Sit and Eavesdrop the Trees'). The natural world shines from poems in which the poet experiences love, sex, heartache and bereavement. A wonderful read. Recommended. My full review of this book will be published in The North magazine, Winter 2020.
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