This collection seeks to anthologize Farrell's work from 1975 to the present. It is a celebration of his 'Trodition' from youthful exuberance to manhood, memories that continue to inform his creativity. Busting the Blues is a selection of poems from various published and unpublished collections. In 1999 it was awarded a 3rd prize in the Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Competition. This revised edition explores a number of themes relevant to youth, family and the wider community and remains his major collection to date. It is intended to further excite an interest in the reading and...

1ST PRIZE WINNER OF 2003 FRANK COLLYMORE LITERARY ENDOWMENT AWARD
"A significant part of the pleasure of this collection of poems comes from the poet's use of language and imagery where, as the examples quoted above have perhaps indicated, there is a rough "pushing" at the limits of understanding and meaning-in order to give birth, not only to the meaning of the poem, but also to the paradoxes and contradictions of life that it embodies: the cruelty and the danger and the violence, but also the possibility of hope and the birth of love. I hope that your own reading of Barefoot On Ice will...