Liz Berry, Doireann Ní Ghríofa & Jessica Traynor

In The Republic of Motherhood her bold and resonant gathering of poems, Liz Berry turns to the ‘transformative wild experience’ of motherhood. Her poems sing the body electric, from the joy and anguish of becoming a new mother; through its darkest hours to its brightest days. Full of solace, honesty and unabashed beauty, they bear witness to that most tender of experiences — when a new life arrives, and everything changes.

“An electrifying collection of poems that makes your heart sing.” Jessie Burton, The Daily Telegraph

Doireann Ní Ghríofa asks when does a poem tell the truth? When is it a lie? Intimate moments carefully re-appraised (first dates, break ups, young parenthood, etc.) are the raw material of these vivid and wholly engaging poems, written in Irish, and translated here by the author – a process that itself raises questions about poetry and truth. But a great deal of the power of Doireann’s work comes from the way her personal history links her to the wider world – to the imaginative encounters that prompt so many of the poems, to an acute awareness of the restless nature of language itself, and not least to the women who preceded her and who remain a steadying and guiding presence throughout.

“A brilliant addition to the distinguished succession of bilingual poets writing in Irish and English.” — Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Ireland Professor of Poetry

Echoes and hauntings, visions and visitations, glimpses of other worlds in the margins of this… The Quick, the second collection of poems by Jessica Traynor begins with a brush with death and goes on to explore a startling variety of connections with life, and indeed the living – “the bacterial living / their stain their voices” – and the matter of life itself. From the loss of loved ones to the arrival of a firstborn “no bigger / than a loaf of bread”, the poems stay faithful to a busy cast of characters which includes strangers encountered on a moonlit quay, the infamous Lord Haw-Haw and the restless spirits of recent family, national, and international history.

“These poems will give you goose-bumps.” Helen Mort