With their stylistic assurance and wildly imaginative flair, Nic Aodha’s poems are invigorating the Irish language. Many of her poems are visionary meditations; meeting places where the inner being can commune with the outer world. This is an essential volume of modern Irish poetry, presented in a bilingual edition.

Swallows

A swallow line on telephone wire, strokes of Payne’s grey, vertical daubs

wait to fly south under the wing of their patron who has just painted in

this ochre sunshine. Their feet tap telegraphs to southern cousins.

I travel east feel a blast of coolness, icicles of mistrust,

stalactites in the cave of my mind. I emerge into opposite light.