Eamon Grennan, a poet beloved by his peers — Derek Mahon wrote a Foreword for his first collection, Wildly for Days (1983) — has been winning new admirers. Among younger poets, Molly Twomey and Kevin Graham have recently dedicated poems to him. A poet who knew from the beginning the values and rewards of paying attention finds himself at the opening of That’s It, his final book of poems, ‘in the dark’, ‘in numbered days and nights’, from which he takes abiding comfort in the solace of language. The collection describes a present where ‘there’s nothing left — / not even the memory’. But Eamon Grennan’s resilience endures while — as ever in his poetry — there are birds, ‘their sweet salutes’, a ‘symphony orchestra / that never slips out / of time or tune’. This moving, sorrow-filled book still finds ‘first leaves / of the fresh, hope-lit / autumn morning’. It is a testimony to a special spirit.