Portobello Sonnets by Harry Clifton – fluent and humane

Memories mingle with the pace of modern Dublin in a wry, sophisticated study of changePortobello Sonnets opens with a quotation from Patrick Kavanagh: “In the third age, we are content to be ourselves, however small.” This seems disputable; less so would be the proposal that if “we” manage to reach the third age (and Kavanagh scarcely did) we must make what we can of it. Now in his mid-60s, the poet Harry Clifton focuses on Portobello, a district of Dublin bounded by the