This is the second book of poems by Dárá Nolan covering his immigrant experience and the yearning for a birthplace left behind and the opportunities of life in a new country.
The crosses on the cover are symbolic of this experience; the one on Gross Ile in Quebec looking back towards the one on Bray Head in Wicklow. Both crosses loom large in the mind, not unlike like the Church they represent.
Between these pages are the throwaway remarks that became carvings in the granite of the mind, spilled tears that never fully dried, the words of ghosts that won’t be quiet, the bared teeth of vicious mongrels, the sting of leather on cold hands, the acceptance of loss, and it’s fragile truce that threatens to end with every nostalgic dream.
“Unaware that you are giving up one kind of poverty for another.”
“This unforgiving landscape whispers that you don’t belong.”
