Between Here and There

In her second book of poems Sinead Morrissey's worlds grow more diverse, encompassing the Orient, the Antipodes, America and an Ireland which recent history has changed: a country observed through eyes that travel and time have made clear, dispassionate and disabused. The poems are still hungry for grace, but in each new geographical and spiritual territory what seems promise is undermined by material and cultural reality; the ceremonies and beliefs of Japan, for example, yield the most colourful spiritual barrenness; and when the poet returns to Ireland it is with a political anger sharpened by the very directness of her vision. Her use of traditional forms is freer and more assured than ever: her wit is visual and semantic, and wonderfully nuanced in her unusual rhythms of speech.