In this vivid, unsparing new collection, Theo Dorgan reaches deep into his Cork childhood to examine, among other things, the wellsprings of what would become a life in poetry. At times with the forensic detachment of adult distance, at others times given over to reliving a child’s conscious attention to his own life, these poems explore a past where everything is new in the living moment and yet, somehow, “everything will go on forever”.

The poet’s beloved native city is a ghostly, sustaining presence throughout – city familiar and mysterious, cradle of possibilities the young boy dreams of, gazing longingly through the classroom window. In that place, in those days, Dorgan made certain promises to himself. Once Was A Boy asks if those promises were kept.