nicolaheaney

Alchemy: Reviewed

Defined as a book that “shifts through memory, family and nature”, Perry’s first collection is a melting pot of different narratives, both real and imagined, shot through with a poet’s unflinching eye for detail. Death stalks many of the poems, from the sinister ‘Swimming’ where “you/ waded neck high into the lough water.” to theContinue reading “Alchemy: Reviewed”

The M Pages: Reviewed

Published by Picador in 2020, The M Pages is Bryce’s fifth collection. It’s an incredibly moving collection of poems where the poet grapples with the unexpected death of a relative in a central sequence ‘The M Pages’, the nucleus around from which the other poems draw energy. Death opens the collection in the oddly puckishContinue reading “The M Pages: Reviewed”

Hamnet: Reviewed

Winner of the Waterstones Book of the Year 2020 and the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, Hamnet is Maggie O’Farrell’s eighth novel. Although named after Shakespeare’s son and focused around his short life, the narrative strand of Anne Shakespeare (here known as Agnes) is much more prominent. She explodes from the novel as a fascinating,Continue reading “Hamnet: Reviewed”

Constellations

Constellations Winner of the prize for Non-fiction Book of the Year at the 2020 Irish Book Awards, Sinéad Gleeson’s Constellations is a series of essays and vignettes about living with chronic pain and what happens when the body starts to give up. It’s a book primarily about the importance of the body and how itContinue reading “Constellations”

Gerard Smyth: The Mirror Tent Review

Smyth’s sixth collection is one with its gaze focused backwards. Many of the poems are a means of preserving memories in print. While this could mean too heavy a dollop of nostalgia, Smyth avoids the saccharine through the vivacity of his images. In the first of the four sections, memories jump into the reader’s consciousnessContinue reading “Gerard Smyth: The Mirror Tent Review”

‘The Wild Silence’ Raynor Winn Reviewed

Sequel to the wonderful The Salt Path, The Wild Silence is Raynor Winn’s second book. Similarly autobiographical in tone, this book picks up shortly after The Salt Path finishes. From the opening chapter, we’re thrown straight back into the natural world as we meet Ray again. Her and Moth have started on their new livesContinue reading “‘The Wild Silence’ Raynor Winn Reviewed”

‘Morning in the Burned House’ by Margaret Atwood Reviewed

This collection by Atwood explores the view of femininity and female experience. Like her famous novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ there’s a real sense of anger, offset by a directness and black humour. It is divided into a number of stages. It opens with a draining sense of ennui, illustrated in phrases such as “the centuryContinue reading “‘Morning in the Burned House’ by Margaret Atwood Reviewed”

Wintering by Katherine May Reviewed

This book is a study of one woman’s management of her depression. Covering October to March, it’s a meditation on life that examines how we can anchor ourselves in the natural world to cope with the demands of modern society. May sets out her manifesto in the prologue: “Everyone winters at one time or another;Continue reading “Wintering by Katherine May Reviewed”

The Art of Falling, Kim Moore

It’s not very often I feel compelled to buy a book at a reading (mostly because I’m trying to cut down on the amount of books I own, not because the poets are shite) but I knew I had to own this one as soon as Moore finished reading her first poem. It’s a collectionContinue reading “The Art of Falling, Kim Moore”

Northern Ireland: More than Westeros

For those of us in the know (i.e. those of us who grew up there!) Northern Ireland (or the North of Ireland) is more than just a location scout’s dream. We’ve known about the wow factor of our beautiful countryside for years and now it appears the rest of the world is beginning to catchContinue reading “Northern Ireland: More than Westeros”