Literature

A Wading Light

Seán Hewitt’s memoir of queer love, helplessness and heartbreak

Literature

For Your Discomfort

Lullabies, but not the kind you’d want to sing to your baby

Poetry

Darts of Thought

An exploration of the complexities of identity and relationships

Irish Literature

A Grand Passion

Nora Barnacle’s life with ‘an envious, proud, lonely, discontented man’

Midwinter

In her second collection, Leeanne Quinn gives voice and presence to the Russian poets Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva and Osip Mandelstam. Like Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova,…

A Hero and his Valet

The runaway slave Tony Small saved the life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald

World Literature

Pushing against the Corset

The extent to which poets play on language varies enormously, but in Geraldine Clarkson’s debut, in which it might be said she uses wit as…

From Little Marseille

A generation of poets in Cork in the 1970s came under the charismatic influence of John Montague. Although he had the holy status of an…

The past present

What distinguishes Peter Sirr’s latest collection from the usual themes of nostalgia and consciousness of time passing is a kind of psychic connection with both…

Irish Literature

Narrative Joyride

In a new collection of short stories, Nuala O’Connor, already known as a novelist and poet, shows what she can do in another form. Secrets,…

Irish Literature

Striking Out

A new publication features an invaluable survey of the landscape of Irish experimental poetry, a vibrant tradition, if one that departs from the general set…

World Literature

Thinking ’bout the Things

The strongest impression in Eva HD’s new collection of poems is of her casual register (she often uses words like ‘dunno’ and ‘uh’) and her…

Irish Literature

Shards

In a new novel by Conor O’Callaghan, which is reminiscent of Clare Louise Bennett’s experimental ‘Pond’, it’s as if the narrator – and the reader…

Irish Literature

A Strange Tale

An experimental novel that takes place entirely inside the mind of an unnamed protagonist relates the thought processes and intensely focused observations of an elusive,…

Irish Literature

Opening Out

In a collection of almost sublime purity, Vona Groarke moves from a youthful confidence inspired by love, to a state of ‘chassis’, and finally to…