Literary Collections & Literary Criticism / Women Authors

The range of poems in Massacre of the Birds moves from an encounter with water creatures in ‘Hanging House in a Canal’ to the appearance of a satyr in O’Donnell’s back garden in ‘Muse.’ Mythic nature abounds, but wake-up calls to social denial also appear.

After five chapbooks and ten years writing poetry, this first full collection has a wide wingspan and a sharp eye. Migrating from Dublin to Lough Gara, on the Sligo Roscommon border, the intimacies of personal life sit easily next to global themes of conflict, the environment, migration, and the universal matters of love and death.

"I have always admired people with ideas and flair and imagination. Eithne Hand has it all. This first book of her poetry is a fresh new voice and for me paints so many wonderful pictures." - Kathleen Watkins

Poet Rita Ann Higgins bears witness to a moment in Irish life unlike any seen in a century: the Covid-19 crisis. Many of these pandemic poems, broadcast on Brendan O’Connor’s RTÉ Radio 1 show, were composed weekly in direct response to the emerging crisis.

Do Not Touch is Sandra Ann Winters’ second full-length book of poetry, in which section I weaves the themes of sexuality, nature, and everydayness.

In this thoughtful and nuanced collection, Lori Desrosiers maps that country sometimes called the past, sometimes called memory, into which loved ones have gone or soon will be disappearing. It’s a space limned by nostalgia, which can be beautiful for the trace of what used to be, in the way that an armless goddess is lovely.

“In The Meeting Place, Dede Cummings exposes some of the more interesting cards in the deck of her life. The results are a series of openhearted, straightforward poems, which are as sensitive to the natural world as they are to the inner one." -Billy Collins

Irish poet (and Austrialia resident) Anne Casey's second collection of poetry, out of emptied cups, explores what it means to be human—a consciousness contained within a shell that dictates so much of what our experience of life will be.

This no-holds barred account of Leland Bardwell’s life spans five decades and unveils the shroud of innocence that often clouds our vision of the past. Bardwell confronts her life head on, confessing...