Devices of detachment

In this the first of six documentaries with the verse commentary written by different poets, Damian Gorman addresses the problems a writer faces when living in a place where words have failed. In “Devices of Detachment”, he looks at the situation that exists in Northern Ireland and at the way this has numbed “the good people”, the ordinary men and women of the province. In a very personal journey that starts with his childhood in the seaside town of Newcastle in Country Down, he travels down that familiar road littered with the memories of earlier atrocities, wondering as he does so at the increasing inability of words to connect with them.“To hold the tongue’s frustrating,To bite the tongue is soreBut to swallow the tongue, as we have doneIs dangerousAnd more”.