Some of the greatest poetry is that which helps us to make sense of the unthinkable. Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh used imagery from his daily life as a farmer to try to comprehend the devastation of the Second World War. By writing about what he knew, he was able to draw parallels between wars being fought on the world stage and the personal battles we face every day.

Irish-born, Saltdean-based poet Tony Frisby has adopted this technique for his latest self-published poetry collection, Letters From A Cave In Saltdean.

It draws together poems written between 2000 and 2011, a time when Frisby’s marriage was breaking down, while the events of 9/11 and the Iraq war rocked the world to its very foundations.

“Kavanagh was fed up with these great men talking about war as though it were part of Homer’s Illiad,” says Frisby. “He said, ‘I’ll handle what I can handle, which is the wars in my own little parish.’”

Writing poetry enabled Frisby to address important issues, while at the same time pouring out the emotion of his recent divorce.

“It allowed me to do something I really wanted to do, which is talk about war, and it also allowed me to get all the personal angst out,” he says.

“Every story needs telling. Even though my break-up with my wife is nothing compared with the death of one child, it’s still something I have to say.”

Letters From A Cave In Saltdean is the fourth booklet in Frisby’s Letters series, following Letters To The Sea, Letters To The Downs, and Letters To Breda. The anthologies reflect on significant people and events in Frisby’s past in relation to his life in Saltdean, nestled between the Downs and the sea.

Born in Waterford, Frisby left school at 14 and emigrated to London with his family a few years later. He worked in factories for the next eight years, doing seven-day weeks and struggling to get by.

“We were a big family – seven of us, nine including my parents. My father was never out of work, but he couldn’t make ends meet.” The years of hard work eventually paid off when Frisby retrained and took a job as a sub-postmaster in Barnes, south London.

Frisby returned to education late in life. He began studying in 1988 and later graduated from Brunel University with an MA in Renaissance and Modern Literature. He started a PhD but the writing bug had taken hold and he left academia to put his passion into practice.

“I had no intention of getting into academia because by then I’d discovered writing for myself. It’s one thing to critique and praise poetry, but to write it… by that point I was hooked.”

It was the breakdown of his marriage that brought Frisby to Saltdean in 2000. He soon fell in love with the area and spent many days wandering the twittens and byways of Sussex, collecting his thoughts.

“All my poems are supposed to be about the Downs and the sea and where I live. As I was writing them I’d realise you’re not on the Downs when you’re walking – you walk in your head. There are two kinds of places where you live – you live in your geographical location but I’m never actually where I am physically, I’m forever chasing back in my mind.”

He believes the finest poetry arises when these two worlds collide.

“I realised there are two sides you write from and the best poetry sometimes comes from the clash, where they’re imposing on each other.”

The titular cave of the collection is on Saltdean seafront and is used as a metaphor for a place of safety.

“When I moved down here, I took nothing with me. I had a little flat with no memories in it because the memories were too awful to deal with at the time,” says Frisby. “The cave is a place of refuge – a sad but untroubled place. Sometimes a place of safety is not what you want and what you really want is where you’ve come from.”

Frisby has six further collections on the go, but is unsure which he will release next.

“There’s no shortage of poetry to put in them, it’s trying to find coherent themes,” he says.

For now, he is happy to have his new collection published and hopes it will be well received at its Brighton launch at Redroaster café next Friday.

“I can tell when I’m reading if what I’ve said has struck a bell with someone, and I absolute love it.”

  • Tony Frisby will be reading a selection of his poetry at Redroaster café, St James’s Street, Brighton, on Friday, September 21, from 7.30pm
  • Letters From A Cave In Saltdean is available to buy from Waterstones, Brighton, for £3.99.