Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume One Nov-Dec 2026.
Shipping Forecast, poems by Michael Durack.
Shipping Forecast
Not caring one whit about the general synopsis,
the area forecasts or the weather reports from coastal stations.
Unconcerned at the prospect of gales
in Viking or Faeroes, South Utsire or Tyne.
Indifferent to winds backing or veering in Bridlington,
to visibility (moderate or poor) in Scilly,
to pressure rising or falling at Valentia.
And still the Shipping Forecast keeps me enthralled
with its morning alarm, its late night lullaby,
the soothing strains of Binge’s Sailing By,
the names transcending meaning, those lilting trochees
that laureates found irresistible (Duffy and Heaney),
their Rockall, Malin, Dogger, Finisterre (or Irish Sea).
I dip into that litany, lull myself to sleep with a whispered
Lundy, Shannon, Fisher, German Bight,
Bailey, Humber, Portland, Hebrides.
Finisterre
What’s in a name when the place remains the same?
Bombay has not moved though now called Mumbai.
Ditto for Beijing nee Peking, Iran formerly Persia.
A rose by any other name – remember Shakespeare?
So what does it matter, Burma or Myanmar, Ceylon or Sri Lanka?
It’s a question of reappropriation you say,
so bye-bye Queenstown, say hello to Cobh;
good riddance Ayers Rock, welcome Uluru;
No skin off my nose if they exchange
Siam for Thailand, Gold Coast for Ghana,
Bechuanaland for Botswana, Madras for Chennai.
But I draw the line at Finisterre,
not the Galician Cabo, the Spanish land’s end
nor Sylvia Plath’s Breton promontory.
I mean the shipping area west of Biscay, south of Sole,
the one now called FitzRoy.
Due respects to FitzRoy, Captain of The Beagle,
founder of the Met Office, father of The Shipping Forecast.
By all means name a sea area for him, but not Finisterre
whose cadenced trisyllabic foot alone completes
the Rockall, Malin, Dogger trochees of Duffy’s radio prayer.
Falling Slowly
(i.m. Glen Hansard)
Shipping forecast,
vessels trawling
pressure falling,
outlook changing,
trochees ranging
from Viking to Forties,
from Dogger to Fisher,
from Humber to Dover,
from Portland to Plymouth,
from Biscay to Lundy,
from Fastnet to Shannon,
from Rockall to Malin,
from Bailey to Faeroes,
(Fair Isle also.)
Shipping forecast
spoken sadly,
mourning Hansard,
falling slowly.
© Michael Durack
Michael Durack lives in Ballina, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. He is the author of a memoir in prose and poems, Saved to Memory: Lost to View (2016) and four poetry collections, Where It Began (2017), Flip Sides (2020), This Deluge of Words (2023) and Look In! (2026) published by Revival Press.