Böcker av Katie Donovan

By turns lyrical and sardonic, this new collection from Katie Donovan is characteristically watery - candid and uncompromising in its refusal to inhabit the safer reaches of the shore. Whether writing about her hybrid car, the death of whales from ingesting plastic waste, abortion now being legal in Ireland, or the increase in demand for sex dolls, Donovan's idiosyncratic range of tone and subject continues to enthral and engage the reader thirty years after her debut collection, Watermelon Man, arrived with its 'distinguished and open language' and 'bold statements of identity' (Eavan Boland).In this collection themes of loss, widowhood and ageing co-exist with observations of the poet's wild garden and its inhabitants, including a mangy fox she helps to survive. In some of these new poems the comforting delusion of rescue is highlighted as a flawed but human necessity, as in the case of Ishi, the last of his tribe 'saved to be / a living exhibit in a museum'. Other poems give voice to the remorse that is the haunting of a failed rescue.In 2017 Katie Donovan was awarded twenty-first O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry 'for the intensity and conviction of her poetry, in recognition of the great range of both her craft and her subject matter, and in appreciation of her dedication to the witness and the vocation of the writer'.

This is the first volume of its kind to present a collection of writings by and about Ireland's women. From Queen Maeve of Connaught to President Mary Robinson, this book presents Irish women as their compatriots-men and women both-have described and interpreted them.Modern Irish women are outspoken about the issues that rouse their passion-love and sex, marriage and divorce, abortion and adoption. As Katie Donovan says in her introduction: "Our selection is intended to give the reader a taste of the varied spectrum, from the courtly praise of men to swinish male chauvinism; from women's declarations of outrage against church and state to their celebrations of childbirth and motherhood." This book celebrates the vast range of women's thought and activity, their spirituality, and their passions.The women who appear in this collection are both well known and unknown, real and invented. The editors have drawn freely upon translations of the mythological tales and later Irish poems, upon letters, biographies, and newspapers as well as prose and poetry, plays, recordings and songs, in order to present a complex multilayered and richly rewarding view of Ireland's women.

This powerful new collection combines Katie Donovan's unflinching insight into our human foibles with her exceptional descriptive gift. The years of her husband's throat cancer are charted in poems by turns tender, harsh and darkly humorous.

Katie Donovan is a leading Irish poet. "Rootling" draws on three previous Bloodaxe collections, "Watermelon Man" (1993), "Entering the Mare" (1997) and "Day of the Dead" (2002), together with a whole collection of new work.