Description
Book SynopsisMaura Dooley's poetry is remarkable for embracing both lyricism and political consciousness, for its fusion of head and heart. These qualities have won her wide acclaim. Helen Dunmore (in "Poetry Review") admired her 'sharp and forceful' intelligence. Adam Thorpe praised her ability 'to enact images for complex feelings...Her poems have both great delicacy and an undeniable toughness...she manages to combine detailed domesticity with lyrical beauty, most perfectly in the metaphor of memory ' - "Literary Review". These new poems take in the physical landscape, family and friendship, as well as the transience of both folklore and politics. In part, an attempt to speak of what is submerged, they welcome that 'splash of cold water to the face' that tells us we're alive.
Trade ReviewSound Barrier...demonstrates beautifully the strength of this deceptively delicate, often very tender poet: how she marries spare lyrical cadences with political scepticism, packing a whole gamut of wit and sharp observation into very little space. -- Ruth Padel * Financial Times *
Kissing a Bone, her second collection, adds a shrewd historicising sense to the lyric tenderness which glowed in her first book. It takes us across borders - literal, emotional and figurative - into states of mind which are entirely her own, yet instantly recognisable by all us us. -- Andrew Motion
