Chic To Be Sad

These fearless poems, rich in simile (a smile ‘wide / as a long weekend’) and striking detail, rest in ordinary settings — an ‘Online Staff Meeting’, an Aldi car park in Youghal. Framed between work that centres on a fire in her family home this book displays an even wider range than her debut — from ‘My Brother’s Friends Draw Dicks’, ‘The Mechanic Speaks to My Boyfriend Over My Head’ and ‘Why We Don’t Have Kids’ it reaches to the Guggenheim Museum in Venice and considerations of art. There’s a constant sense of the aftermath of illness and the poems never shy from physical and emotional vulnerability. Brave in its honesty and directness, Chic to be Sad confirms a specialgift and presence in Irish poetry before reaching its wise conclusion:‘There is so much to know, / so much I want you to hear.’

Molly Twomey

Gallery Press
9781917371049
72 pages
€‎12.95/€‎19.50
Paperback/Hardback
Ireland
Poetry by individual poets