Publisher's Synopsis
A fresh, new collection of poetry and prose, which explores how we feel about our home, identity, and communities. Its contributors include established writers like Medbh McGuckian, Moyra Donaldson, and Erika Meitner, who have all provided work published here for the first time; there are also well-known works by Ciaran Carson, Alan Gillis, and Paul Maddern, which focus on our diverse understandings of place and belonging. While all of the writers either live or have spent significant time in Northern Ireland, the geographical settings of the pieces extends beyond this region, to the United States, the Caribbean, the European continent, and South Africa.
The issues treated by the authors encompass family and friends, love and romance, wit and irony, memory and longing, conflict and peace, as well as suffering and healing. There is an abiding concern with complexity of character, depth of relationship, the implications of change, interaction with surroundings, and acuteness of perception. These pieces feature both comedy and tragedy, and, above all, an awareness of the extent to which human interactions influence our ideas about who we are, as well as where and why we belong.
