Guide the small boat of my body back to my self. Tell me which path brings me home. (‘Mercy’) Róisín Kelly’s first full collection (her chapbook, Rapture, was published in 2016, by Southword Editions) explores that very potent Irish Roman Catholicism with its personal and political resonances, and weighs it up against the island’s older, Read More
Reading Charlotte Van den Broeck’s recent Bloodaxe collection makes it clear to the reader exactly why she is acclaimed as one of Europe’s most innovative and original new voices in poetry. Her first English-translated poetry collection, Chameleon, was published in 2015, followed by her second poetry collection with the untranslatable title; Nachtroer in 2017. Chameleon Read More
Menna Elfyn was born near Swansea in 1951. She was brought up with the Welsh language at home and in Chapel and raised during a time when teaching Welsh at school was not promoted. Elfyn is a renowned professor of Poetry and Creative Writing, at the University of Wales Trinity St. David’s in Carmarthen, where Read More
Ailbhe Darcy’s second collection is a literary force of nature fearlessly exploring themes of love and grief. Much like her debut collection, Imaginary Menagerie, which begins in Dublin and then stretches further afield, Darcy offers a dark telling of the world seen through her eyes. Similarly, in Insistence, an unsettling feeling of hopelessness and anxiety Read More
Reading Amali Rodrigo’s Lotus Gatherers is like taking into your mouth sweetness, sharpness and bitterness all at once. Then she engages your other senses – smell, sound, texture, colour. After that you’re hooked because beyond the initial sensory pull, there are greater riches, deeper depths. Lotus Gatherers is Rodrigo’s first collection, though she has already Read More
Home Front is a new volume of poetry by four women who have each had a husband or son who has been to a combat zone. Bryony Doran, Jehanne Dubrow, Elyse Fenton and Isabel Palmer are the poets, whose voices tell of having a loved one in armed conflict. Each poet has a collection within Read More
Get rid of words and meaning, and there is still poetry. Yang Wanli (1127-1206) Firstly, Newcastle University and Bloodaxe Books must be congratulated for instigating and publishing this innovative series of lectures. Quantum Poetics gathers three given by former Welsh National Poet Gwyneth Lewis. Though highly engaging and accessible, these are not for the dabbler. Read More
Already a well-known figure in Britain”s Buddhist community, Maitreyabandhu founded Poetry East in 2010, a venture which set about exploring the relationship between spiritual life and poetry. As a teacher of Buddhism and meditation at the London Buddhist Centre, he is better placed than most to explore this connection. Already a published author of several Read More
Everybody deserves recognition for their creative achievements, unshadowed by backstories and illustrious family comparisons. Rightly, this courageous painter-poet has long been outspoken, criticising those choosing to play with her biography to suit their own ends. The press release is wisely oblique on this aspect. I turned away from the room’s elephant. Frieda Hughes is probably Read More
Book jackets are interesting indeed, ideally giving generously before even a word inside is seen. Madeline von Foerster’s arresting tempera panel Invasive Species II makes an apt introduction to the complex nature of Caitríona O’Reilly’s third collection, Geis. On the back cover, Patrick Crotty, in The Irish Times, praises The Nowhere Birds (Bloodaxe 2001), shortlisted Read More
