Carcanet Press - Valparaiso

Description
Excerpt
Author
Contents
Awards
Reviews

It was making day when I looked out
at the kind of beauty
that leaves death unthinkable,
purple slate, gannets rising in small explosions
and everything makes sense.
The world is round again and we are its sun
describing a horizon, ratskin waves stretch to America
lumps of sea rise under the bow and below
acres of drowned Ireland and a mountain.
from ‘Resident at Sea’

In 2007 Mary O’Malley made a voyage on the Irish marine research ship the Celtic Explorer. It took her far out into the Atlantic, and it returned her to a self and a country made strange. Valparaiso, a collection begun at sea, is a book of searches and discoveries, plumbing oceanic depths and returning to a shore that ‘marks the start of possibility’. The surge and swell of the sea sounds in it, a place of wonders where the imagination is freed. ‘What would sing in me is the deep ocean.’

As the scientists chart a course dictated by the demands of research, as Ireland is careering from boom to bust, Mary O’Malley explores the science of going under and staying afloat. She returns to an altered place, and is herself changed by an odyssey that has taken her around the Atlantic and Europe, into her past and back to a kind of homecoming.

Poem on a Leaf
The Way
At Jardin des Plantes
Antikythera
Coda
Dido, Grainne, Brid
Recession Eve
Mystical Things
Philoctatea
In the Seminary
Entropy
The Lost Boys
Two Heads in a Landscape
Instress in Ireland
Mercy
The White City
The Lisbon Bride
Israel
Last Night in Paris
The Guide
Still Life
Whom the Gods Love
One Year On

II Resident at Sea

I Sea Road, No Map
II Oceano Nox
III Abyss
IV Shore
V Narthex

III

Veteris Vestigia Flammae
More Space than Stars
Play It Again, Sam
Homage
Before Winter Comes
Faith
Dreampoem I
Dreampoem II
Interregnum
Civet
Watching the StutteringLovers
If
An Easement for the Chest
Instead of a Proposal
No
Tesseract
Manchester
Coelacanth

The Lusiads
Ekphrasis
The Myth of Language
Crew
Thalassa
Neap
The Shark’s Dream
Caged
Cetorhinus maximus
The Black Glacier
To All Who Are Hopeless withBirds
Statues
Caravaggio’s Hands
Homesick
The Birth of Venus
Climbing the Volcano
The Gulls at Fastnet
Never Merely One Albertine

Notes

Mary O'Malley was born in Connemara in Ireland and educated at University College Galway. She lived in Lisbon for eight years and taught at Universidade Nova. She served on the council of Poetry Ireland and was on the Committee of the Cúirt International Poetry Festival for eight years. She was the ... read more

Awards won by Mary O'Malley Joint winner, 2018 Michael Hartnett Poetry Award
(Playing the Octopus)

'Mary O'Malley's seascapes [...] are suffused with such beauty and sonorous mystery and rhythmic care that they lift us above ourselves and the time we inhabit.'

Colm Tóibín, Irish Times, 8th December 2012

Praise for Mary O'Malley 'There are many memorable poems in The Shark Nursery, a book that speaks eloquently to our place in the natural world as well as to the challenges posed by the current political landscape. Overall, it is a rich and stimulating collection that cements O'Malley's reputation as one of Ireland's most important contemporary poets.
Tim Murphy, The Friday Poem
'The Shark Nursery brings a fine lyric sensibility to subjects as diverse as Greek mythology, marine biology and the time/space continuum. ... Other poems push all the way into a lyrical surrealism rare in Irish poetry, harnessing metaphor's capacity to rough up our sense of the world as fixed and predictable.'
Vona Groarke, The Irish Times
'Gaudent Angeli is a significant addition to the opus of a poet serious about her art... O'Malley excels when she combines the high with the low, such as in 'Little Dazzler' which manages to include Odysseus, a sorceress, condoms, smartphones, and a "supermodel in a green tube dress".'
Kevin Higgins, Galway Advertiser
'very fine and hugely varied collection of poetry'
Colette Sheridan, Irish Examiner
'O'Malley is a true artist in sketching the beautiful, small details without which the essence of place, and the identity dependent on it, can be all too easily erased.'
Eavan Boland
'This new collection by one of Ireland's most respected and radical poets is as exhilarating a read as the title promises. Sampling through levels of irony from the neolithic to the neon lights of the lonely cities, from east to west, and indeed the hackneyed wesht (with a characteristically wicked eye), O'Malley offers us lyrics of the salvific quotidian woven together with the surreal elements of surviving our island paradoxes. Insouciant as the pirate queen Grace O'Malley who downfaced Elizabeth the First, Mary O'Malley steps into a zone of power and mastery with these new poems.'
Paula Meehan

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Valparaiso Mary O'Malley 10% off eBook (EPUB) 10% off Paperback Categories: 21st Century, Irish, Women Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: eBook (EPUB) Needs ADE! (Pub. Nov 2012) 9781847776471 £9.95 £8.96 Paperback (96 pages) (Pub. May 2012) 9781847771353 £9.95 £8.96 To use the EPUB version, you will need to have Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) installed on your device. You can find out more at https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html. Please do not purchase this version if you do not have and are not prepared to install, Adobe Digital Editions. Description Excerpt Author Contents Awards Reviews It was making day when I looked out at the kind of beauty that leaves death unthinkable, purple slate, gannets rising in small explosions and everything makes sense. The world is round again and we are its sun describing a horizon, ratskin waves stretch to America lumps of sea rise under the bow and below acres of drowned Ireland and a mountain. from ‘Resident at Sea’ In 2007 Mary O’Malley made a voyage on the Irish marine research ship the Celtic Explorer. It took her far out into the Atlantic, and it returned her to a self and a country made strange. Valparaiso, a collection begun at sea, is a book of searches and discoveries, plumbing oceanic depths and returning to a shore that ‘marks the start of possibility’. The surge and swell of the sea sounds in it, a place of wonders where the imagination is freed. ‘What would sing in me is the deep ocean.’ As the scientists chart a course dictated by the demands of research, as Ireland is careering from boom to bust, Mary O’Malley explores the science of going under and staying afloat. She returns to an altered place, and is herself changed by an odyssey that has taken her around the Atlantic and Europe, into her past and back to a kind of homecoming. I Poem on a Leaf The Way At Jardin des Plantes Antikythera Coda Dido, Grainne, Brid Recession Eve Mystical Things Philoctatea In the Seminary Entropy The Lost Boys Two Heads in a Landscape Instress in Ireland Mercy The White City The Lisbon Bride Israel Last Night in Paris The Guide Still Life Whom the Gods Love One Year On II Resident at Sea I Sea Road, No Map II Oceano Nox III Abyss IV Shore V Narthex III Veteris Vestigia Flammae More Space than Stars Play It Again, Sam Homage Before Winter Comes Faith Dreampoem I Dreampoem II Interregnum Civet Watching the StutteringLovers If An Easement for the Chest Instead of a Proposal No Tesseract Manchester Coelacanth IV The Lusiads Ekphrasis The Myth of Language Crew Thalassa Neap The Shark’s Dream Caged Cetorhinus maximus The Black Glacier To All Who Are Hopeless withBirds Statues Caravaggio’s Hands Homesick The Birth of Venus Climbing the Volcano The Gulls at Fastnet Never Merely One Albertine Notes Mary O'Malley was born in Connemara in Ireland and educated at University College Galway. She lived in Lisbon for eight years and taught at Universidade Nova. She served on the council of Poetry Ireland and was on the Committee of the Cúirt International Poetry Festival for eight years. She was the ... read more Awards won by Mary O'Malley Joint winner, 2018 Michael Hartnett Poetry Award (Playing the Octopus) 'Mary O'Malley's seascapes [...] are suffused with such beauty and sonorous mystery and rhythmic care that they lift us above ourselves and the time we inhabit.' *Colm Tóibín, Irish Times, 8th December 2012* Praise for Mary O'Malley 'There are many memorable poems in The Shark Nursery, a book that speaks eloquently to our place in the natural world as well as to the challenges posed by the current political landscape. Overall, it is a rich and stimulating collection that cements O'Malley's reputation as one of Ireland's most important contemporary poets. Tim Murphy, The Friday Poem 'The Shark Nursery brings a fine lyric sensibility to subjects as diverse as Greek mythology, marine biology and the time/space continuum. ... Other poems push all the way into a lyrical surrealism rare in Irish poetry, harnessing metaphor's capacity to rough up our sense of the world as fixed and predictable.' Vona Groarke, The Irish Times 'Gaudent Angeli is a significant addition to the opus of a poet serious about her art... O'Malley excels when she combines the high with the low, such as in 'Little Dazzler' which manages to include Odysseus, a sorceress, condoms, smartphones, and a "supermodel in a green tube dress".' Kevin Higgins, Galway Advertiser 'very fine and hugely varied collection of poetry' Colette Sheridan, Irish Examiner 'O'Malley is a true artist in sketching the beautiful, small details without which the essence of place, and the identity dependent on it, can be all too easily erased.' Eavan Boland 'This new collection by one of Ireland's most respected and radical poets is as exhilarating a read as the title promises. Sampling through levels of irony from the neolithic to the neon lights of the lonely cities, from east to west, and indeed the hackneyed wesht (with a characteristically wicked eye), O'Malley offers us lyrics of the salvific quotidian woven together with the surreal elements of surviving our island paradoxes. Insouciant as the pirate queen Grace O'Malley who downfaced Elizabeth the First, Mary O'Malley steps into a zone of power and mastery with these new poems.' Paula Meehan You might also be interested in: A Journey With Two Maps Eavan Boland Hands Moya Cannon New Collected Poems Eavan Boland	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! 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