Gateways, dunes, canals, clouds, rain are motifs that the poet returns to again and again in her evocations of the opacity of liminal moments in life. The Arts Council of Ireland has twice awarded her a literature bursary (2011 and 2013). Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. Here is a writer who relates with empathy, depth and intelligence to issues that hold relevance for a generation. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The 17 chapters that make up this most unusual book see its author sacrificing something of herself for any number of higher purposes, though there is a wilfulness to Ní Ghríofa’s narrative that saves it from martyrdom. Born and raised in the UK, Sørensen has been living in other countries since 2005, including some time spent living in Dublin.

Dream Country (New Island, 2013) is the début collection of Donna Sørensen. That said, these rare missteps do not topple the collection, and the bulk of Sørensen’s debut is strong enough to overlook the weaker poems among them. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. We have become used to assuming the role of the emigrant and it is with interest that we read from this perspective. Breda O’Brien: What if children are a key source of Covid spread? In 2020: 'A Ghost in the Throat' published by Tramp Press to critical acclaim. Here, sudden realisations strike on thresholds: A jolt – on the front step, head tilted skyward. As one might guess from the title of this collection, many of these poems veer through themes of dreams and nightmares, of beds, of sleep. You’ve reached an article that is only available to Irish Times subscribers. We're delighted to present an extract from A Ghost in the Throat (published by Tramp Press), the new book from writer and poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa.. ( Log Out /  Irish-made tinnitus device cuts symptoms in 80% of patients, Una Mullally: Cancer taught me lessons that can help you cope with the pandemic, Limerick doctor who spoke at anti-mask rally remains defiant, Roddy Doyle: ‘My unpublished first novel was sh*te’, ‘Ross,’ the old man goes, ‘I’m afraid I’ve made a dreadful mistake!’. The poem ‘Misery’, for example, veers a little too close to teenage angst: There is a doomed spirit – it crouches in the dark and mutters, misery… misery…. Pushcart Prize nominee Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s poems have appeared in many literary journals in Ireland and internationally, most recently in France, Mexico, USA, Scotland and England. Review: Dream Country (New Island Books, 2013) by Donna Sorensen Dream Country (New Island, 2013) is the début collection of Donna Sørensen. ( Log Out /  Doireann Ní Ghríofa: Stands apart with her lyrical prose and the stoic, almost noble sensibility that runs through her autofiction. Coronavirus: Extended mid-term break discussed but plan for now is to keep schools open, Bubble bursts as LeBron James leads American sport’s fight for real change, BER with it: Taking a Dublin house from an F-rating to an A3, We need to fight off the virus upsurge without destroying entire sectors of the economy, Cliff Taylor: Go out and spend your cash, it is your national duty, The Caledonian gold rush: Panning for precious metal in Scotland, ‘The girls in my law course weren’t friendly.

As one might imagine, a… ( Log Out /  Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. “Lush, lyrical prose that dazzles readers from the get-go… sumptuous, almost symphonic, in its intensity… As readers, we should be grateful for her boldness. Budget 2021: Who will be the winners and losers? Born and raised in the UK, Sørensen has been living in other countries since 2005, including some time spent living in Dublin. She is now based in Copenhagen. In Dream Country she marks herself as a poet of intellect and empathy, resolutely of our times. The title poem vividly illustrates the speaker’s experience of settling in a new country, a feeling that will resonate with many readers of Sørensen’s generation: I am here and in my dreams, I am there leaving the trail of crumbs, the pieces of my own puzzle, my life, one night at a time. Dream Country guides the reader through a series of dream-like, often liminal landscapes. The idea of Home is one which Sørensen interrogates again and again throughout these poems. Quite the opposite, Budget 2021: Government to spend extra €6 billion in largest budget in history of the State, Gardaí arrest man over alleged €500,000 pension fraud spanning 33 years, Covid-19: Five more die and 617 new cases reported as coronavirus resurgence continues, Jennifer O'Connell: We’re on a train bound for Level 5, and there’s no way off, Aidan O’Brien faces large fine after case of mistaken identity at Newmarket, Double decker bus takes wrong turn and gets wedged under bridge in Cork. Doireann Ní Ghríofa has sculpted a fluid hybrid of essay and autofiction to explore the ways in which a life can be changed in response to the discovery of another’s – in this case, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill’s Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, famously referred to by Peter Levi as ‘the greatest poem written in either Ireland or Britain during the eighteenth century.’ These poems work as well on the page as they do aloud. Review: Dream Country (New Island Books, 2013) by Donna Sorensen. Doireann Ní Ghríofa: Stands apart with her lyrical prose and the stoic, almost noble sensibility that runs through her autofiction. In Murmurations, the speaker reflects on the spectacle of a flock of starlings in flight and considers the universal desire to create a home: This common search for nesting places, the desire to shelter together. For the best site experience please enable JavaScript in your browser settings, The town that kept Covid-19 out: ‘The message has got through here’, Trump engineered sudden windfall in 2016 as campaign funds dwindled, Netflix: The best 50 films to watch right now, Miriam Lord: Taoiseach and Tánaiste see red over ‘Level 5 leak’, Much of what we think about Covid-19 is wrong. Perhaps the most effective of these is the exquisite short poem To Bed: Perched as a paper crane at the only still moment of the day, waiting to unfold myself into a blank sheet, ready to be written on by dreams. There is the sense throughout of a woman who has figured out what it means to be alive and who wants others to join her at the party. Change ). Mortality was on top of her. They ignored me, the only Chinese woman’, Frequently asked questions about your digital subscription, Specially selected and available only to our subscribers, Exclusive offers, discounts and invitations, Explore the features of your subscription, Carefully curated selections of Irish Times writing, Sign up to get the stories you want delivered to your inbox, An exact digital replica of the printed paper. We need to change the conversation, David McWilliams: Why an Irish mortgage costs €80k more than a German one, Coronavirus: New fines for not wearing face masks and non-essential journeys by end of the month, The BBC still rues the day Jeremy Clarkson hit an Irishman, Fintan O’Toole: Trump has not sacrificed himself for his people. Sørensen explores this theme effectively in the poem ‘Wind at the Zeppelin Hall’, where the speaker is suddenly reminded of England by a fleeting smell so familiar and evocative of her childhood that she imagines herself returned to those days. ( Log Out /  The imagery of these poems often evokes the twilight between sleep and wake; Sørensen  is at ease in explorations of liminality. In the 1700s, an Irish noblewoman composes an extraordinary poem that reaches across the centuries to another poet. The Dublin 6 house with the Newgrange light effect, Nurses demand repeal of policy allowing staff to work before finishing self-isolating period, Kilruddery House's walled garden wonder revived, Tommy Bowe still on his game and alert to all possibilities, Covid-19 hotspots revealed: Parts of Donegal, Longford and Monaghan worst for virus, Inside an Irish medical tech company...Aerogen, Gabriel Scally: Postponing drastic Covid-19 action is a grave mistake, ‘It is going to get worse’: A nursing home copes with new virus restrictions. This poem is concluded deftly and poignantly-. Her most recent book is the bestseller ‘A Ghost in the Throat,’ which finds the eighteenth-century poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill haunting the life of a contemporary young mother, prompting her to turn Doireann Ní Ghríofa is an Irish writer. “Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a poet to watch, with a fresh view of the world: apparently ordinary houses, shops, common objects and activities. Perhaps it is in her evocation of these thresholds moments that Sørensen is at her strongest, as in the poem Knives, Forks and Fathers where the speaker is emerging from a post-university haze into an acceptance of her life as an adult: Without looking up, we talk of this and that and it happens – that each of us carefully places our worries for our fathers upon the table between us, amongst the glasses and hands clutching slightly warmed metal and I only know then, finally, that we are no longer children. Matt Williams: Springboks to inevitably join Six, or will it be Seven Nations? Ní Ghríofa is a poet and essayist. There are many moments of poetic radiance here, poems that delve into surreal and dark matter and delighted this reader (There Could Have Been Sparks, Evergreen, The Puppet Son). Subscribe today and get the full picture for just €1 for the first month. Indeed, Sørensen’s deft handling of rhythm and language lend themselves to a certain poetic musicality that complements the dreamlike tone of this collection.

Her pamphlet of English poems Ouroboros was recently longlisted for The Venture Award (UK). Donna Sørensen is a poet of substantial dexterity who tackles issues of our time with a voice that is measured and distinct. However, there are a few of the poems that come across as a little overwrought and might perhaps have benefited from a firmer editorial hand. This is familiar ground in Irish literature, yet Sørensen  succeeds in turning the old stereotype on its head; she renders it freshly through the voice of an exile, a ‘foreigner’ based in Ireland.

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