Böcker av Eva Bourke

The journey of Eva Bourke's eighth collection of poems is one of bereavement, heartbreak and, ultimately, renewal. In poems that record - with courage and tenderness - the loss of loved ones, of close family and friends, there is throughout a refusal to soften the keen gaze and precise detail for which her work is so often praised, as if the poet's role is ever to be witness, guardian and curator. Instead of heartbreak enforcing a retreat from the world, rather it seems to strengthen her commitment to those in danger ("the boats adrift in the night / and the storms that sweep them overboard" - 'Twenty-eight Swimmers') and her belief in the power of art and music as both consolation and celebration, an engagement that has been the heart of her work over many years. As she says in 'The Singer's Fable', in memory of Mary McPartlan: "Sing, even if your hearts are heavy, even if your houses are on fire, rise up and sing."PRAISE FOR EVA BOURKE"[T]he maturity and wide sympathy of this poet's vision is everywhere in evidence. The formal and tonal variety achieved by Bourke in this volume [Seeing Yellow] is also very pleasing.... Warmly recommended." -Caitriona O'Reilly, The Irish Times"These poems suggest that the soul is an enduring gentleness in us, in others, in perhaps everything, and that it needs us to release it, to let it breathe, to nourish it with what we create rather than destroy." -Fred Marchant on 'piano'

The seventh collection of poems by Eva Bourke, the German-born Galway resident whose poems are distinguished by their empathy, historical awareness and meticulous attention to detail.

Editors Eva Bourke and Borbála Faragó present a timely and important anthology of poems by sixty-six poets, from all over the world, who have made their homes in Ireland and who contribute to, challenge and ultimately broaden the definiton of what is thought of as 'writing from Ireland'. "As its subtitle suggests, Landing Places is an anthology of immigrant poets living in Ireland. Of course it is not accidental that we, as editors, should be interested in and absorbed by the work of such writers since it touches upon our own personal lives. Both of us are ourselves immigrants to this country, and both of us are poets. Both of our families have a narrative of displacement, emigration, religious and political persecution reflecting centuries of a European history of war, expulsions, racism and ethnic cleansing. We know that, whether voluntary or forced, it is never easy to end one life and begin another elsewhere, leaving family and friends, one's familiar places and the sounds of one's language behind." -from The Introduction