Rita Ann Higgins\u2019 poetry became a national salve during the pandemic, uniquely capturing the mood of the country as read live on radio from RT\u00c9\u2019s Brendan O\u2019Connor Show. This collection of poetry, containing the bank holiday poems heard on the show and many others, sets a tone for all seasons. From bank holidays to saints\u2019 days and many other annual celebrations on the Irish calendar year, they are at times uplifting, at times nostalgic, always reflective of real life. With poems such as L\u00fanasa, I Thought Saw St. Brigit Today, My Mother Loved Me in Red, The P\u00faca, Visiting My Father at Christmas and All Souls\u2019 Day, The Long Weekend leaves no question that Rita Ann Higgins is the people\u2019s poet.\r\n\r\nPublished 29th August 2024 - Order Now.
These intimate, visceral and often wickedly funny poems journey through the darker days of new parenthood, teasing out the anxieties which plague us when night falls. Violence against women, the destruction of our environment, the poisons and pitfalls of 21st-century living are explored here in poems by turns lyrical and earthy, yearning and angry. They mine gold from the darkness and seek luminescence in the deepest oceans. Pit Lullabies is Jessica Traynor’s third collection, following Liffey Swim (2014) and The Quick (2019) from Ireland’s Dedalus Press.
‘Visionary, luminous and haunted, Jessica Traynor’s poems are home to a host of compelling characters: witches, changelings, the spirit of Hildegard of Bingen. In The Quick, even the grotesque is rendered with subtle delicacy – a woman whose “lungs fold like an origami bird”. These poems will give you goose-bumps.’ – Helen Mort
ISBN 9781780376066