<p>Poetry. Irish émigré poet Mairéad Byrne's provocative and unhinged YOU HAVE TO LAUGH showcases, for the first time in one volume, more than twenty years of groundbreaking poetry that ranges from taut lyrics, sustained narratives, prose and occasional poems, to high-wired sound texts. Byrne's brash energy, wry quips, and engaged bittersweet critiques of the overinflated language of consumerism and world-weariness elevate these poems from the laugh-out-loud funny toward understated pathos. The way the work integrates high cultural references with spoken-word intensity, while the syntax swerves with wildly varied diction, is sure to attract a wide audience even as it undermines easy categorization.</p>

You Have to Laugh: New + Selected Poems

Literature & Fiction

Byrne, Mairéad

Poetry

Barrow Street Press

Poetry. "Mairead Byrne's poems are moving microcosms in which a keen power of observation and playful imagination fuse with the minutiae of daily life to create small missives of quirky and insightful documentation. Her source material includes everything from the weather to credit card bills to news reports to human body parts to animal pelts and all of these seemingly disparate details amass into a kind of living, breathing envelope that holds the marrow of existence itself in all its harsh reality, weird surreality, absurdity, fragility, and occasional beauty. Often funny and sometimes sobering, Byrne's work exposes the difficult-to-reconcile distractions, detritus, and rubble that surround us from all sides, but also culls glowing artifacts from such debris"--Juliet Cook.

The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven

Publishing Genius Press

Poetry. "TALK POETRY is so hot. High bandwidth textblocks buzz with wonderful conversations. Verbal quadrats frame teeming diversifications. It's just gorgeous...Don't let this one slip through your fingers. Unmissable"--Randolph Healy.

Talk Poetry (Miami University Press Poetry Series)

History & Criticism

Miami University Press

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Books by Byrne, Mairéad