Description
In this 11th collection of his poetry, Macdara Woods brings his hallmark qualities of energy and alertness to the subject of memory, its revelations, transports and deceptions. The Cotard Dimension unflinchingly faces “the distorting glass / In the bathroom mirror” and discovers that “memory is where I am / One- fingered memory / Poking round among the ruins”. His poetic world is full too of present realities, of immediacy, his characteristic, photographic fidelity to the moment and to all the elements which chance unites in a scene, to the flash of colour and light. The wit and humanity of his Clare Island series enable him to catch the instant when we see the ancient and contemporary bound up in each other. And in poems that deal with the poet’s slow recovery after an accident, he records the renewal of “the wild olive that we thought was dead”, and produces a volume of poetry that, despite our troubled times, celebrates “fresh growth new bone”.