Pink rain, a flock of waders turn in the sun
and there is nothing but the space between
dimensions, a luminous choreography
of the birds absence; a trick that
no matter how often we see it calls back
the ghosts of faith and wonder, to disappear again
perfectly rehearsed, like a shoal of mackerel
making their iridescent bellies dark.

from 'Bowbend'

Mary O'Malley is a natural musician. Her poetry alludes to music – the music of Ireland, the Iberian peninsula, the America of jazz and spiritual – and shares forms with it. Music is spiritual and political at the same time. Her themes embrace the child colonised and the adult journey, Ireland and America and Southern Europe, a poetry exploring love, place, loss, and locating the poet's one true home in language. When her native Irish language is lost to her, finding that true home becomes a special kind of challenge.

The Boning Hall is the first book of poems by Mary O'Malley to be published by Carcanet. It includes work drawn from her previous collections, Where the Rocks Float (1993), The Knife in the Wave (1997) and Asylum Road (2001), all published by Salmon Poetry.