A daring first collection from an exciting young Irish poet, tackling how to live with the past and not be consumed by it.
These poems explore the sense of powerlessness a young woman feels growing from childhood to adulthood in a predominantly Irish Catholic society. Restricted, she deems herself simultaneously too small and too big, an Alice in Wonderland. The poems develop an identity cobbled together with scraps from the Bible, snippets of film, favourite poems, the lives of the saints, and a kaleidoscope of memories, and track what emerges when that identity is not sturdy enough to sustain her. Faced with the loss of a loved one and the shock of her own mortality, a weight she has carried subconsciously since childhood, her fragile façade shatters at her feet like porcelain.
The collection viscerally explores bereavement, sex and the defiant female body coming-of-age in Catholic Ireland. Its themes of identity, relationships, sexuality and food, are universal, broad-ranging and would resonate with readers who connect with other young female Irish writers like Sally Rooney, Naoise Dolan and Caoilinn Hughes. The language is vivid, unexpected, intimate and engaging beckoning the reader through the some-times challenging, often unsettling world of a disappearing Catholic Ireland to a newer, shinier psychic space.
***
Where did I start? LEARNING TO EAT MY MOTHER, WHERE MY MOTHER IS THE TEACHER
***
(@Carcanet, 25 March 2021, paperback, 84 pages, bought from @SeahorseBookst1 via @bookshop_org_UK)
***
***
This is a new poet for me. I've wanted to read Eat or We Both Starve for ages because I've read so many rave reviews about it. I enjoyed all of the poems on offer. I liked the range of subject matters and poetic styles in the collection. Some of the subjects covered include cancer, disordered eating and pregnancy. I partially enjoyed Learning to Eat My Mother, where My Mother Is the Teacher, Alternative Medicine and Open Your Mouth. I look forward to reading more of this poet's work.