Dunn's landscape at the end of the century embraces the spectrum of urgencies and obsessions that we live with and for. It's a landscape that we share with citizens and spies, revelers and mourners, women who weep, men who keep secrets, and especially with the poet himself.

    

    After all, it’s just a bit of harmless flirting, right?And when she calls to ask for my help one night, I can’t resist having a little fun with her. She thinks I’m a player, and I can’t deny it, but I want to show her there’s more to me than that.I never thought it would happen, but flirting soon turns to burning desire. The more time I spend with her, the more I take a long, hard look at myself, and the harder I’m falling under her captivating spell. Now, I need to convince her my feelings are real.And I can’t even begin to think how I’m going to tell my best friend about us—aka, her country music superstar brother. He warned me to stay away, and he’ll kill me, I’m sure.SiobhanI had it all planned out. It should have all been so simple.Go to LA, see my brother, then get back to my quiet life in Ireland. Love and romance were not in the picture at all, until he picks me up from the airport. I can’t deny I’m attracted to him, but it’s not happening. No way could we ever work.He’s a player.He’s older than me.We live an ocean apart.And, duh… for the love of Mary, he’s my brother’s best friend.But when I find myself stranded, he’s the only one I can call. He’s more than happy to help me out—and even more happy to remind me I owe him for coming to my rescue—but I tell myself not to fall for his charms.I’m only there for a week, so the last thing I expect is to wake up in his bed.Irish Love is the second book in The Claddagh Trilogy. A contemporary short story of love, friendship and family life that can be read as a standalone, though you may want to read Irish Affair first to familiarize yourself with the characters. This book ends on a mild cliffhanger / happy-for-now, and the conclusion to Ben and Siobhan’s steamy romance will be in the third book, Irish Heart, out March 2018.

    

    Through ‘A Rustic Mind’ I aim to provide a thoughtful take on such actions and incidents. Poetic in its expression, these words will strike a chord which is not only deep but relatable on many levels.

    Using the events of his life as starting points, Gerald Stern deals with time and loss, with the dichotomy of light and darkness, and—always—with the possibility of joy. This stunning collection moves from autobiography to the visionary in surges of memory and language that draw the reader from one poem to the next.

    It was a sample (and not even the correct file - it was an old rough draft that was saved under a new title), and Goodreads will not take it down. The Amazon link directs to the correct, and full, edition. "She is lost, but the world is too. It is a perfect circle.For life is, but a dream /// is not."- "Seeing Ghosts/A Perfect Circle" excerptA. H. SewellCopyright 2015

    Included in this volume is the work from Eavan Boland's five early volumes of poetry: New Territory, The War Horse, In Her Own Image, Night Feed, and The Journey.The poems from Boland's first book, New Territory, show her to be, at twenty-two, a master of formal verse reflecting Irish history and myth. This collection charts the ways in which Boland's work breaks from poetic tradition, honors it, and reinvents it. Poems like "Anorexic," "Mastectomy," and "Witching" have an intensity reminiscent of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. In later poems, her subjects become more personal, sequencing Boland's life as a woman, poet, and mother. Boland writes, "I grew to understand the Irish poetic tradition only when I went into exile with it," becoming, in effect, "a displaced person / in a pastoral chaos."This collection demonstrates how Boland's mature voice developed from the poetics of inner exile into a subtle, flexible idiom uniquely her own.

    M. Ocean explores the depths of love deeply felt and violently lost. For those whose wounds are fresh and hearts still raw with ample emotion, Ocean portrays pain and suffering in apt and heart wrenching candour.

    Journeying between his native Ulster and his adopted London, he balances ideas of home and flight, the need for belonging and the need to remain outside. Formally deft, rhetorically fresh, these poems never shy from difficult choices, exploring cruelty and vengeance wherever they may be found: in love, in work and against political backdrops. But these are brave, resolute writings that resist despair at all times, affirming instead the need to rebuild and to right oneself, to dust down and carry on.

    0-935906-02-9$5.00 / Javan Press

    

    From illusions of permanence and ownership to the pain of estrangement, Liar masterfully explores feelings familiar to anyone who has ever loved — and lost. Crosbie also goes beyond this territory, examining the lover’s own complicity in her joy and suffering. Liar is a grotesque, beautiful meditation on the nature of love.

    Short Haul Engine is one great twist of fate and fury after another. The writing is clear, striking and open to all sorts of possibilities. Even at their most playful, these poems dive much deeper than initially expected. There's a remarkably dark sense of humour at work here, but tempered with a haunting vulnerability that makes even the sharpest lines tremble.from "Signs Taken for Wonders" ... Too delicate for these dog-days, small, clover-blonde, my sister sews indoors. I ask her to fashion me into something nice, ivory silk. I am a big girl, sunburnt skin like raw meat, sweating two pews in front of the Blessed Virgin....

    But, beneath the cosy contentment of their lives lies tensions that threaten to erupt at any moment. Andrew, Laura's handsome brother, has just returned home from Crete with his bride in tow, the surprisingly timid Ruth, who is finding it hard to fit in with Andrew's overbearing mother, Cecily. And, to her increasing concern, Andrew doesn't seem to have his mind entirely on her... Laura is desperate to have a family, and can't understand why Donal doesn't seem to share her only wish. And the beautiful, glamorous Breffni, with her lovely husband, Cian, and the golden child, Polly, well, she has the greatest surprise in store...