Not on the Side of the Gods

Anna Crowe writes to rescue obscure stories and give a voice to things that have no voice. Her poems celebrate the mystery and diversity of the natural world while mourning its fragility. Birds fly in and out of poems in which lurk extraordinary invertebrates and strange plants; the vulnerability of human lives and family relationships is another concern. One of the foremost translators of Catalan poetry into English, her appetite for language is rooted in her love of music. The Poetry Book Society selectors described her poems as "sinewy and questing, alive with memory and attentive to the interior landscape".