Falling in Love with Broken Things
"Falling in love with broken things can be described as a coming-of-age narrative or Bildungsroman. Alive with crisp images, the poems range from childhood memories of freedom and enchantment to the uncertainties of adolescence and young adulthood. Unflinchingly, they look at early experiences of loss, at complex and ambivalent family relationships and the mysteries of love and heartbreak.
Moving outward geographically from the nucleus of family, countryside and school, to university years and further to a wider world beyond Ireland, the poems’ courageous and attractive honesty and emotional depth are achieved through the poet’s control of poetic techniques and language, and her unique blending of traditional forms and “spoken word” styles.
Alvy Carragher is a skilful and sensitive poet who, astonishing in someone so young, possesses a high degree of psychological insight and tact, and her portrayal of the emotional undercurrents between people is at the same time forceful and subtle. It is a first collection that will resonate with and delight readers, a book they won’t want to put down until they have finished it in one sitting." (Eva Bourke)
The Carpenter's Daughter
sits in the sawdust heap, because it smells
just like her father, all warm dust and work
sweeps wheelbarrows of it out from under saws,
the scent of steel, the blade still above her head
pulls planks bigger than her across the room,
wants to know how to fix a shelf, or sand a chair
she loves most what wood can become,
rubs the blisters on her soft hands
they'll turn calloused like his carpenter's skin,
a small sacrifice, to be the one, to make
a new world from that which has fallen,
sliced from the sky to never see it again
she has the gist, but not the knack,
the gist is building with bravery
to take a tree stripped of all its dignity,
then put it back together tenderly
Canal Bank Moon Walk
I want the sky to be monumental, but it won't cooperate,
better to think about the moon, to stalk the walk of moon talk,
once, you pointed to its round orb, said it's a mystery for lovers,
I laughed, but you never meant to be funny
I don't dance like Michael Jackson or know like Kavanagh,
Who would have understood the way you spoke,
always filling each syllable with meaning,
you saw the magnitude in each blade of grass,
those clumps of green hulking with metaphors
I sit on the bench, where you said goodbye,
the place where you first told me your sadness,
we watched a furled swan unravel as if to crack our skulls,
you said something about beauty or transience,
I saw only its hard beak, capable of bone break,
back then, I must have been scared of everything,
fear of swans, mostly, and dying without saying anything
as for the canal, in all its borrowed romance,
you pointed at our trapped reflection,
said we're stuck in a moment of time,
and I cursed your brain magic,
I felt nothing, no shimmer, just a watery fish-grave
full of coke cans and slouched condoms
after you left, I started to see others –
doctors, bankers, anyone without a thought for the canal,
I keep their kisses, they don't make me feel insignificant,
they see the dead water that I see,
their scarves are thick and braced for winter,
they all have warm skin, not like,
your cold hand pointing at the moon.
Book Details
Publication date: Monday, June 13, 2016
Details: 74pp
ISBN: 978-1-910669-43-3
Cover Illustration: Lucy Carragher. Cover design: Siobhan Hutson
