<p>Winner of the Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2016 Shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize 2016 'Geis' is a word from Irish mythology meaning a supernatural taboo or injunction on behaviour. In her long-awaited third collection, Catriona O'Reilly examines the 'geis' in all of its psychological, emotional, and moral suggestiveness: exploring the prohibitions and compulsions under which we sometimes place ourselves, or find ourselves placed. In poems that range from the searingly personal to the more playfully abstract and philosophical, O'Reilly's characteristic imaginative range and linguistic verve are everywhere in evidence. These are poems that question our sometimes tenuous links with the world, with others, and even with ourselves, but which ultimately celebrate the richness of experience and the power of language to affirm it. Geis is Caitríona O'Reilly's third collection and a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, following her critically acclaimed earlier books, The Nowhere Birds (2001), shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and The Sea Cabinet (2006), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. O'Reilly has what so few poets have: a language all of her own, so much so that any image or line is instantly recognisable as hers - Sinéad Morrissey, Guardian (Books of the Year)</p>

Geis

O'Reilly, Caitríona

Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

This first collection introduces a young writer of remarkable maturity and narrative power. The book's holding pattern is set by questions of location and flight, beginning with views of childhood and adolescence, then moving outwards in poems of daringly imaginative range-finding. Whether describing a derelict harbor, an Alpine sky, Renaissance statuary, or an octopus, Caitriona O'Reilly manages to etch her images into memory with lapidary skillfulness. Above and beyond its wealth of detail and cosmopolitan bustle, The Nowhere Birds honors its title with an acute awareness of what goes on at the fringes of experience.

The Nowhere Birds

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Bloodaxe Books

The title-poem conjures the vanished world of the whaling industry, and serves as a starting-point for other acute meditations on natural and cultural obsolescence.

The Sea Cabinet

Poetry Ireland Review #99

Poetry Ireland

<p>Geis is a word from Irish mythology meaning a supernatural taboo or injunction on behavior. In her third volume of poetry (following the critically acclaimed The Nowhere Birds and The Sea Cabinet), Caitríona O’Reilly examines the geis in all of its psychological, emotional, and moral suggestiveness: exploring the prohibitions and compulsions under which we sometimes place ourselves, or find ourselves placed. Geis is the first appearance of a volume by Caitríona O’Reilly in North America, though she has been anthologized numerous times, including in The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Volume I (2005) and The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women’s Poetry (2nd edition, 2011). In poems that range from the searingly personal to the more playfully abstract and philosophical, this poet’s characteristic imaginative range and linguistic verve are everywhere in evidence. These are poems that question our sometimes tenuous links with the world, with others, and even with ourselves, but which ultimately celebrate the richness of experience and the power of language to affirm it.</p>

Wake Forest University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O'Reilly, Caitríona. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by O'Reilly, Caitríona

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by O'Reilly, Caitríona. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Geis

The Nowhere Birds

The Sea Cabinet

Poetry Ireland Review #99

Geis