The Nowhere Birds by Caitrona Oreilly
Caitriona OReillys first collection The Nowhere Birds, winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, introduced a new poet of remarkable maturity and narrative power. The books holding pattern is set by questions of location and flight, beginning with views of childhood and adolescence, followed by poems of daringly imaginative range-finding.
Though Caitríona O'Reilly's work is seldom less than beautifully intricate, there is an amplitude here, an exuberance which jousts in a thrilling way with her particular refinementsThough she might be, in her own words, "rational and unafraid", she keeps reminding us of "the primitive darkness", its fearful disorderliness. Whether enthralled or appalled, she beholds and magnifies the world and its strange creatures (including ourselves) in poems that are formally versatile and linguistically copious. Caitríona O'Reilly's The Nowhere Birds is a stunning debut collection. -- Michael Longley
The most startlingly accomplished debut collection by any Irish poet since Paul Muldoon's New Weather in 1973. -- Patrick Crotty * The Irish Times *
Although this book moves from childhood through adolescence and student travels to adult relationships, it charts this journey through a dream-world filled with natural imagery that either terrifies and repels, or that expresses libidinal desires intimately understood. At times eerie in their invocation of spiders, bats, and the claws of birds, these poems are drawn through such witch-like details to the edge of the known world, where they lift off into a surrealist vision of exemplary lyricism. -- Selina Guinness * The New Irish Poets *
The most startlingly accomplished debut collection by any Irish poet since Paul Muldoon's New Weather in 1973. -- Patrick Crotty * The Irish Times *
Although this book moves from childhood through adolescence and student travels to adult relationships, it charts this journey through a dream-world filled with natural imagery that either terrifies and repels, or that expresses libidinal desires intimately understood. At times eerie in their invocation of spiders, bats, and the claws of birds, these poems are drawn through such witch-like details to the edge of the known world, where they lift off into a surrealist vision of exemplary lyricism. -- Selina Guinness * The New Irish Poets *
Caitríona O'Reilly was born in Dublin in 1973, grew up in Wicklow and Dublin, and now lives in Lincoln. She studied archaeology and English at Trinity College Dublin, where she wrote a doctoral thesis on American literature; she has also held the Harper-Wood Studentship from St John's College, Cambridge. Her first collection The Nowhere Birds was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2001, and won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2002 (given to the best new book by any Irish writer). Her second collection, The Sea Cabinet (Bloodaxe Books, 2006), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award in 2007. Her third collection, Geis (Bloodaxe Books, UK; Wake Forest University Press, USA, 2015), won the Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2016 and was shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize in association with Listowel Writers' Week. It is also a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She is a freelance writer and critic, has written for BBC Radio 4, translated from the Galician of María do Cebreiro, and published some fiction. She has collaborated with artist Isabel Nolan, edited several issues of Poetry Ireland Review, and was a contributing editor of the Irish poetry journal Metre.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781852245603 |
| ISBN 10 | 1852245603 |
| Title | The Nowhere Birds |
| Author | Caitríona O'reilly |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Bloodaxe Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2001-04-26 |
| Number of pages | 64 |
| Prizes | Winner of Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2001 (Ireland), Short-listed for Waterstone's Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection 2001 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |