Irish writing
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‘bind’ is a book-length poem in several chapters, of which Eavan Boland said “These elegant, impressionistic poems work with a fractured landscape, one that will haunt and engage the reader. The wing of a bird, a black crystal, a willow tree – in the brief, taut language of the poems these references begin as words and end as codes.
They gesture towards mysteries and secrets, and the feelings that are an archive for
both. Chris Murray writes with grace and lyric thrift and her poems will remain in the
reader’s memory long after they have caught the reader’s attention.”
Back From Away by Damien B. Donnelly
ISBN: 9781913598532
Release date: May 8th, 2024
Back from Away is a bold, courageous, often poignant evocation of the many ways in which the poet’s literal journeys – both leaving, and returning, home - are accompanied by a voyage into the self. With wit and humour, sometimes seasoned with a dash of sadness, the collection explores the challenges of childhood and young adulthood, encompassing adoption, emerging sexuality, relationships. Back from Away brims with insight into the individual’s quest for authenticity in a complex world.
Highland Boundary Fault by Emma McKervey
ISBN: 9781913598563
Highland Boundary Fault is a daring and immersive odyssey that draws the reader into a mesmerising medley of myth, history, art, and a love story that travels from the Outer Hebrides to the Scottish mainland. The wild landscapes of the Highlands, the shipyards of Greenock on the Clyde estuary, the ancient worlds of story, are peopled by a cast of characters who are both archetypes, and flesh and blood, fantastical and familiar, their endeavours and struggles awakening our deepest memories and longings.
Her Red Songs by Chris Murray
ISBN 978
1913598495 84 pages
Release date: February 21st, 2024 Now available for pre-order.
Her Red Songs is the most recent collection from one of Ireland’s most innovative and daring poets. Chris Murray’s remarkable body of work is a profound expression of connectedness with the environment, her poems evoking a delicate, yet often searing, contemplation of the place of the individual within the natural world. The poet's astonishing command of language, the dexterity of her use of punctuation and space, the precision of her craft, meld in the creation of these create beautiful, haunting poems that touch the reader at their deepest level.
Inside Out by Julie-Ann Rowell
Inside Out The poems in this remarkable collection offer a fearless account of an individual grappling with the physical, emotional and social challenges of living with chronic illness. FND – Functional Neurological Disorder – is a disorder in the functioning of the nervous system, whose symptoms include a variety of physical, sensory and cognitive symptoms such as seizures, dizziness, chronic pain, speech impairment, paralysis. The poet documents her journey from diagnosis, through hospitalisation, discharge and eventual recovery. Inside Out is a moving and uplifting testament to the resilience of the human body and spirit.
“This beautiful collection of poems tells us two stories: one about a body that ‘tumbles, drowns /… [is] in mortal trouble’ and another about an inner self which, albeit wounded, continues to feel ‘charmed’, finding both beauty and love in the world. I was moved on every page.” Tom Sperlinger
“Julie-ann Rowell tenders a document of self-examination and self-disclosure, astonishing for the record it keeps of struggle and recovery.” Thomas Lynch
ISBN: 9781913598433 Paperback 92 pages
Everything Gathers Light by Eithne Lannon
Everything Gathers Light - a delicate and profound collection of poetry, beautifully crafted, from a poet at the height of her powers.
"Eithne Lannon’s second collection, Everything Gathers Light, is a primer of discovery and revelation. The poems meticulously dissect moments of everyday experience, freezing time as they unpeel every layer of perception and emotion, and patiently unveiling a natural world that is seamlessly integrated with our day-to-day lives. Anchored in the rivers and seascapes of North County Dublin, the precision of the language sets a spark of recognition that is universal, thereby reinforcing the sense that one of the primary ambitions of outstanding poetry must be to take the reader home." Maurice Davitt
ISBN 9781913598464 Paperback 68 pages
Short Stories by Liz McSkeane – What to Put in a Suitcase
ISBN 978-1-913598-37-2
These sixteen stories from an award-winning fiction writer and poet follow a cast of characters destined to navigate a world that is by turns perplexing, intriguing, threatening. What to Put in a Suitcase evokes a rich variety of people and situations: a suburban dinner party whose hosts harbour a troubling secret; a childhood prank in 1940s Dublin with tragic consequences that reverberate through the decades; the sinister challenge of walking along a deserted corridor; a family fleeing environmental disaster in Dublin of the near future; a passionate defence of personal space, even if only in the local café.
Read one of the stories, Lebensraum in Books Ireland Magazine now.
“The world of What to Put in a Suitcase is a very uncertain place, full of uncomfortable questions. We are frequently unsure where we are, the terrain shifts, the ground beneath our feet feels increasingly unstable. These are stories written in spare, pared-back language, with images that startle, packed with interior monologues that are rich with insight and observation and reflect the challenges of modern life: immigration, the pandemic, violence against women, society’s many inequalities.”
Catherine Dunne
Noble Rot by D.S. Maolalai
ISBN 9781913598273 100 pages May, 2022.
"There’s a gorgeous vulnerability to D.S. Maolalai’s Noble Rot. These poems, rich in variety and location, capture an accumulation of small moments and gestures that reflect back to us the inevitable progression of time - I guess this is my first shot at becoming old, really. Whether set in Canada, Kilbarrack, Istanbul, the poet, with seemingly singular intention, returns again and again to small, local, incidental details that one suspects his younger self might have missed, which alchemise the fleeting experience into something precious and lasting. The down-to-earth tone and language used throughout gifts the reader an intimacy. A full-bodied read, Noble Rot will have you calling for another, and another round." Anne Tannam
"...a joy to read and flowering with hues of good edits, delicate Irish turn of phrase and lovingly hand stitched through a talanted poetic edge. "Michelle Moloney King, Beir Bua Press
“The poet [ ] stands impassively at the centre of his spinning world, quietly recording the whirlwind through time and place. These poems contemplate the fabric of life, placing situations and happenings into the pattern of that fabric. if you can still your mind to his pace of calm noticing, it will take you to a world of thrilling detail.” Melissa Todd, The Journal
Secret Poets by Darren Donohue
ISBN: 978-1-913598-30-3 74 pages
April 2022
"Wry, witty and surreal, the poems in Darren Donohue's first collection demonstrate a confidence rare in début poets. Cosmopolitan in his sensibilities and attuned to the complexities of Irish and international history, Donohue is an heir to greats such as Matthew Sweeney; poets who challenge us to look outside our narrow selves, and glimpse the world through fresh eyes." Jessica Traynor
Tiger Moth by Róisín Tierney
ISBN: 9781913598334 85 pages
April, 2022
"These unsettling, dark lyrics have a wonderful verbal energy; a mythic imagination. Snowberries have a ‘pale gleam’, a ‘halo’, a texture like ‘a mortician gently filling a bruise.’ Insects and birds come as harbingers, as though from another world, and are both read as symbols and also dexterous in their evasion of the speaker’s quest for applied meaning. Through a careful balancing, Tierney manages to chart the mind’s search for significance with poems seeking similarities between the natural world and the traumas of human life." Seán Hewitt, The Irish Times
Brink by Jo Burns
Brink is a work that bears witness to a world hovering on the edge of crisis, yet sees hope in the compassion and empathy in personal relationships that forge the unbreakable bonds that bind us. From her vantage point of the post-truth, pandemic-afflicted present, Jo Burns turns her fierce analytical powers to the impact of propaganda and conspiracy theories on public and private discourse. Her unwavering eye roves over the bloody history of the 20th century, seeing our only hope in the personal connections which give promise for the future.
These arresting poems are imbued with the multi-layered, highly textured craft of a poet at the height of her powers, committed to engaging with the most urgent questions of our time.
Learning to Tango by Liz McSkeane
ISBN 978-1-913598-18-1 60 pages May 2021
This collection is an exhuberant, playful, sometimes intense reflection on navigating the challenges of movement, the dynamics of the dance floor and the world beyond it. The poet makes many discoveries along the way – about the dance, about the quest for the ideal and the necessary acceptance of imperfection. Throughout the collection, the mischievous use of traditional and non-traditional poetic forms conveys the variety and skill of tango itself. And at the heart of the endeavour is a passion to imbue every step, however basic, with balance and grace, for “in tango the walk is simple/and therefore takes a lifetime to learn.”
Plain by Ross Hattaway
ISBN 978-1-913598-20-4 72 pages October 2021
Hattaway’s signature pared-back style reveals the starkness at the heart of life experiences – family connections, expectations, disappointments, grief. The detached voice, now teasing the reader with deadpan wit, now teetering cheerfully on the abyss, unflinchingly gazes upon ‘ sadness/at the heart of things’ yet emerges resilient, resisting, surviving.