Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. We're just about at the end now of

National Poetry Month, but you know, you can pick up a poem at pretty much any time. And today,

we've got this interview with the Irish poet, Column Tobin, who's out now with a new

collection called Vinegar Hill. And the conversation starts with a poem about

not wanting to write poetry. That's too adorned or fluffy, too much, basically, because that seems

like the kind of guy Tobin is pretty straightforward, especially for a poet. And just to cement that

characterization down a bit, there's a part

in this interview with NPR Scott Simon, where he talks about getting cancer and what he learned

facing illness and chemo, or more like what he didn't learn.

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Column Toby and the great Irish poet novelist joins us now, so let's not fritter away any more

time before he reads a poem. Column, could you please read prayer to St. Agnes?

Oh, holy St. Agnes, cure me of metaphor. Make me say exactly what I

mean without trickery or recourse to words that are not clear or clean. O martyr and saint,

let life be dull and make our verses unadorned, and let next year's poem be plainly full of signs

that lessons have been learned.

The flowers grow as appointed from the soil, and do not paint the meadow with delight.

They whither or get picked, which serves to spoil our notion so mistaken on first sight,

...