To Star the Dark

To Star the Dark by Doireann N Ghrofa

Do our passions control us or us them? These poems find themselves asking such questions in hospitals, in cellars, in Parisian parks and American laundromats, inside our screens and beyond them. Poems of blood and birdsong, of rain and desire, of aftermath and ambivalence, each spoken by a voice, which - like the starlings - sings, at once, both past and present.

Looking into the dark sky of history, Doireann N Ghr ofa calls up an illuminating fire, a night constellated into images of passion and destruction. An astrologer of the body, its endurance and its vulnerability, N Ghr ofa is a poet of daring skill. Lyrical, searching and enchanted, To Star the Dark is a blazing, brave collection. - Se n Hewitt

Like Eavan] Boland, N Ghr ofa constructs a mysterious world for her readers from the matter of ordinary life. The poems of this collection impress upon us that magic and depth can be found in the minutiae of the everyday. - Poetry Ireland Review, on Lies