Art historian, poet. Born in Waterford, 1940, Tony Frisby’s enjoyed a run of fine volumes since 2000. A notable performer as well as an intellectual (he’d hate the term!) of breadth and weight, Frisby’s grounded too. Everything rises from his voice. Each line’s notable for its powerful tread, a singing quality lowered to gravelly humour and on occasion despair. Frisby’s climactic lines can notably repeat a single word in rhetorical triplicate. Hearing him deliver that is darkly thrilling.

Frisby is our finest ekphrastic poet, and far more than that as other volumes show. There’s not been time to traverse his other poems here, which as hinted at show the dizzying breath of subject matter, range and human agency worked on and worked by these paintings and photographs as subjects.

A day book for art in a closed climate.

Simon Jenner – Waterloo Press.

Born in Waterford, Ireland Tony Frisby moved to England at 19. Thirty years later he returned to education, receiving his BA in Art History and MA in Renaissance and Modern Literature, embarking on a PhD, to then abandon academia to focus on writing poetry himself.

Frisby’s five collections on south coastal themes were each chosen as the ‘Book of the Week’ by Brighton’s The Argus newspaper. Frisby’s epic poem, Me Me and Not Me (2014), and published by Waterloo Press received critical acclaim. In 2016 he edited a poetry collection written for Black History Month, followed by That Blue Pause (2017).

Frisby reads in venues across the South East including Turner Contemporary Gallery  and has facilitated poetry workshops in public libraries and an open prison.