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The astonishing poetry debut exploring hidden histories, mythical landscapes and self-discovery in the face of limits on women's bodily autonomyIn 2017, the presence of a mass grave was confirmed in a disused sewage system in Tuam, County Galway. In it were the bodies of infants - wards of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, where from 1925 to 1961 the children of unmarried women were sent to live their lives in the care of nuns. Their deaths were the result of a conservative culture which, under the influence of the Church, took a prurient interest in women's private lives and bodies. In The Speculations of Country People, her hauntingly lyrical debut collection, Majella Kelly reckons with that legacy. She traces the journeys of women in our own day, from controlling relationships to sexual reawakening and new happiness. The speculations of the title are in part those of gossip, the chatter of small communities everywhere; but they are also those of a local, very Irish mythos, in which pagan and Christian - and truth and legend - blend and blur. Here, then, are hares and selkies, a seductive 'master otter' of 'fabulous elegance' who might carry a woman away in the night; here is the last man on Omey Island; here a retired stuntman, dragging his bed of rusty nails along the beach. And here - quiet, against the beauty and loneliness of the Connemara landscape - are the little bones that wash up on shores or stick from the earth to speak of what has been. ISBN 9781802061727 -
The Washing Windows III anthology is representative of contemporary Irish literature, and of a new society and a new way of accepting and honouring the talent all around us. It contains 100 new poems by women who have not yet published a full collection, selected by Alan Hayes with an introduction by co-editor Nuala O’Connor. ISBN 9781851323210 -
Compiled in honour of pioneering poet Eavan Boland and Catherine Rose, Ireland's first feminist publisher, Washing Windows? is a wide-ranging and insightful collection of poetry by 100 contemporary Irish women writers, including Edna O'Brien, Moya Cannon, Mary O'Malley, Martina Evans, Katie Donovan and Nuala Ni Chonchuir. ISBN 9781851321797 -
Jane Clarke's third collection is far-reaching and yet precisely rooted in time and place. In luminous language her poems explore how people, landscape and culture shape us. Voices of the past and present reverberate with courage and resilience in face of poverty, prejudice, war and exile and the everyday losses of living. Across six sequences these intimate poems of unembellished imagery accrue power and resonance in what is essentially a book of love poems to our beautiful, fragile world. A Change in the Air follows Jane Clarke's widely praised previous collections The River (2015) and When the Tree Falls (2019). ISBN 9781780376592 -
Margaret Nohilly, a retired primary teacher, she has been immersed in poetry for more than 25 years. The Overlap of Things is her debut collection. ISBN 9781851323050 -
Breda Spaight holds an M.Phil in creative writing from Trinity College. Her chapbook, The Untimely Death of My Mother’s Hens, was published by Southword Editions in their New Irish Voices series. Watching for the Hawk is her debut collection. ISBN 9781851323043 -
"Come and take a walk with me... My second collection of poems." Seán Hewitt's debut collection of poetry, Tongues of Fire (2020), won the Laurel Prize in 2021. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide (2022), won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022. He lives in Dublin. Praise for TONGUES OF FIRE: "Seán Hewitt understands that poetic form is sacred and mysterious. In these godforsaken times his reverent procedures are food for the soul." Michael Longley "He's an exquisitely calm and insightful lyric poet, reverential in nature and gorgeously wise in the field of human drama." Max Porter "I fell in love with these wild, heartsore, ecstatic poems. Tongues of Fire is a beautiful book and Seán Hewitt is an extraordinary writer." Liz Berry Published 25th January 2024 - Order Now. ISBN 9781787334274 -
Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan's luminous anthology, 100 Queer Poems, is a celebration of thrilling contemporary voices and visionary poets of the past. Featuring Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Ocean Vuong, Carol Ann Duffy, Kae Tempest and many more. Encompassing both the flowering of queer poetry over the past few decades and the poets who came before and broke new ground, 100 Queer Poems presents an electrifying range of writing from the twentieth century to the present day. Questioning and redefining what we mean by a 'queer' poem, you'll find inside classics by Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, Wilfred Owen, Charlotte Mew and June Jordan, central contemporary figures such as Mark Doty, Jericho Brown, Carol Ann Duffy, Kei Miller, Kae Tempest, Natalie Diaz and Ocean Vuong, alongside thrilling new voices including Chen Chen, Richard Scott, Harry Josephine Giles, Verity Spott and Jay Bernard. Curated by two widely acclaimed poets, Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan, 100 Queer Poems moves from childhood and adolescence to forging new homes and relationships with our chosen families, from urban life to the natural world, from explorations of the past to how we find and create our future selves. 'Abundantly rich and rewarding...capturing how queer poets and their work speak to one another across generations' Attitude 'More than a landmark volume... An anthology that marks the present moment and ushers in a new one' Okechukwu Nzelu -
One of the very first publications to come off the Rough Trade Books press, Pessimism is for Lightweights began life as thirteen pieces of courage and resistance from the pen of the one and only Salena Godden. These are poems written for the women's march, poems that salute peaceful protest, poems on sexism and racism, class discrimination, poverty and homelessness, immigration and identity. This new edition expands the collection to full book length and shows Godden at her inimitable best-deft technique and powerful emotional heft, with additional new poems reflecting on our fast- changing world with her trademark humour and resilience. With a new foreword by John Higgs and an Old English translation by Emily Cotman this is a book full of light, courage and most of all hope. -
Crisis Actor chronicles various failures and farewells. It is peopled by faded heroes and deferential devotees; a hanged donkey, a bloated rat; solitary bachelors and disillusioned youths - these are the watchers, not the players. The poems are awash with rueful self-accusation and laconic scepticism. There are touching elegies, reportage and bruised, wary replayings. A blistering sequence about boxers and their fates weaves through the collection. The overwhelming sense is of life going on elsewhere, the halcyon days and brightest of years long past. This is the aftermath of being one who - in Matthew Arnold's words - 'has reached his utmost limits and finds... himself far less than he had imagined himself'. But there are still flashes of camaraderie, of stars aligning: lunchtimes in sunlit garden squares, languorous pub afternoons, cheering on and hard-won triumphs. These precious, precarious moments point to how we might reclaim potential, discover human connection in times of defeat or despair, and reach towards grace and redemption. 'Elegant and heartaching, these poems illuminate the sorrows of life with a bright flame, returning us to that miraculous human capacity for love and faith even in our darkest days.' Liz Berry 'Declan Ryan reveals himself a master of both the telling detail and of narrative suspense. Each exquisitely orchestrated vignette delivers a punch worthy of the heroes of the ring here commemorated.' Mark Ford -
The Cat Prince & Other Poems is the third collection from prize-winning poet, and author of Boy Friends, Michael Pedersen. All moggy moxie, Pedersen croons to the beauty and devastation of love, loss, friendship, cats and careless joy. Equal parts tender and trenchant, raw and ribald, plangent and smutty, these poems exhibit an emotionally charged, fantastical playground of language and lore. From the brutalising death of a cherished friend comes a gut-wrenching grief. And so begins a tenacious quest for light, lustre and survival as Pedersen pays tender tribute to a gorgeous, life-altering friendship. In doing so, he harks back to the hilarity of being young, reckless and petrified: memories of boys showboating in a fishing tackle shop, games of feline metamorphosis, laments for demolished buildings and a case of constipation of the most pernicious stock. As frisky as it is fierce, The Cat Prince pounces around the poet's emotional and physical landscapes, past and present, unfankling a Scotland full of gothic splendour and nature's majesty. These poems reveal a poet at his bravest and most vulnerable. The Cat Prince & Other Poems purrs with affection, flashes its teeth, then digs in the claws. 'Pedersen bends words like no-one else. There's a naughtiness, an innocence and surprising vulnerability in this collection. It's poetry to intoxicate. Just sublime.' Juno Dawson 'Open-hearted, gut-wrenching and yet elegiac, these poems pack a hefty emotional punch. Michael Pederson's poems display a huge vocabulary for love, love in all its many forms and guises. These poems chart the journey from boyhood to manhood, the highs and the lows, the losses and the gains, always working their way towards an essential, emotional truth' Jackie Kay -
From John Agard and Julia Donaldson to Nikita Gill, Brian Bilston and Carol Ann Duffy, The Big Amazing Poetry Book is a brilliant, accessible introduction to poetry and to fifty-two fantastic poets. Introduced by Roger McGough, the book features the illustrations of former Children's Laureate and beloved author of the Goth Girl and Ottoline series, Chris Riddell. A warm, funny collection, this book is packed with many different styles of poetry - ballads, riddles, tongue-twisters, shape poems, haikus, sonnets and raps - about seasons, festivals, animals, birds, love, war, food, fish and football and much more. Each poet is showcased with seven of their poems alongside a biography to give exciting, engaging context to their work - plus a stunning line artwork on every page. A must have for any young readers, The Big Amazing Poetry Book primarily features work from twentieth and twenty-first century poets. Included are John Agard, Brian Bilston, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Coelho, Julia Donaldson, Carol Ann Duffy, Nikita Gill, Jackie Kay, Roger McGough - and many more. '[A] warm, funny and imaginative celebration of verse, and the ideal introduction to a mix of diverse poets' - Lancashire Post Great for Ages 7-13. -
Self-Love for Small Town Girls is an exciting offering from beloved bestselling author Lang Leav. A collection of stunning poetry and prose that seeks to define the loaded question of what it means to be a woman in the modern world. As women, we create lives with our bodies but often do not have autonomy over our own. We create worlds with our words yet struggle to be heard. Collectively, we yearn for the right to be treated with compassion and equity in our public and private spaces. The path to self-love is seldom a smooth one, especially for those who have further to travel. Self-Love for Small Town Girls is a book for anyone seeking the best and brightest version of themselves. Spanning decades of growth through self-analysis and introspection, Self-Love for Small Town Girls is Lang's most personal and stunning collection to date. -
We Play Here is a collection of four poem-stories, taking place in an underdeveloped area of Protestant North Belfast in the summer of 1988, against a background of political turbulence during the Troubles. Written from the perspectives of four female friends in the months between finishing primary school and starting high school, the girls inhabit an eerie, elemental landscape of normalised violence, poverty and neglect. This is a lyrical and graceful evocation of working-class girlhood that rings of Elena Ferrante's studies of female friendships in the Neapolitan novels, Didier Eribon's Returning to Reims, and Annie Ernaux's The Years. It is a radical approach to girlhood and girl-friendships, the kind of skewered space before an imposition of gender, or before the trappings of gender make themselves strongly known. Innocence is tinged here with a kind of hidden menace. -
From one of Ireland's most important poets, a collection about motherhood at a time of continuous crisis. These poems emerge from the experience of being a single mother in Belfast, and against a background of seemingly continuous crisis. Political upheaval and anxiety, violence and death are all registered in these poems, which ask questions about where independence is balanced by our relationships with others, and where our inner lives meet the globally connected world. These are poems about cities - living, travelling and working in cities, getting sick and dying in cities - but also about retreating from all that: to her daughter at home, the budgie, cat and tortoise, or escaping to the park, the municipal pool, the Irish countryside, Newfoundland, or Paris, or into a Nina Simone song. This is a necessary book - a book very much of our time - with a consistent tone that is brave and bleak, but which also carries with it some much-needed humour, and a wealth of beautiful writing. -
Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Devotions is a stunning, definitive and carefully curated collection featuring work from over fifty years of writing - from Oliver's very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through to her last collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world. 'No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love, from Oliver's exuberant dog poems to selections from the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Primitive, and Dream Work, one of her exceptional collections. Perhaps more important, the luminous writing provides respite from our crazy world and demonstrates how mindfulness can define and transform a life, moment by moment, poem by poem' The Washington Post -
Could there be a more pleasant way to spend a warm afternoon than lazing under a tree reading poetry inspired by these shade-giving wonders of the world? Trees have sparked some of the biggest literary imaginations over the ages and - as the climate emergency escalates - it has never been more important to appreciate our vital connection to them. This beautifully illustrated anthology of sixty tree poems is a celebration of our love of trees. With poems by some of the world's best-loved poets including Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy, Thomas Hardy and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Book of Tree Poems will help you see trees as you've never seen them before. Illustrated by Sarah Maycock -
Every Night is a Full of Stars: More Meaningful Poems for Life is a beautiful collection of poetry chosen by Aoibhin Garrihy to bring solace and joy to our stressful modern lives. Themes include love and loss, hope and peace, self-discovery and identity, and each poem has been specially selected for its power to delight and inspire . With lines of classic and contemporary wisdom taken from a wide range of poets including Donna Ashworth, Emily Dickinson, Brother Richard, W.B. Yeats and Christina Rossetti, this anthology will bring joy to every reader. Published 28th September 2023 - Order Now.
