Verbum et Verbum

Brought up in County Kerry, Micheal Fanning is a medical doctor for whom the worlds of art and medicine are closely linked. His work in medicine has taken him from Northern Ireland, England, and Wales, to Eastern Europe and Africa. In the best of these poems Fanning relives a South Kerry childhood dominated by the sea. His images are simple and memorable. But the peaceful and serene landscapes of a rural and gentle Ireland quickly move to the apocalyptic scenes of massacre in Rhwanda, famine in Ethiopia, orphanages in Romania, and a body riven with cancer. He depicts the early monk scribes who painted otters and griffins to illuminate their manuscripts, much as he seeks images to make sense of a world torn by violence, hurt, and unspoken feelings.