The Wrong Miracle

Just finished reading Liz Gallaghers debut collection 'The Wrong Miracle' and loved it.Liz Gallagher was born and brought up in Donegal, Ireland but has been living in Gran Canary Island for the past 14 years.Surprisingly, she only began writing about 5 years ago yet has already won a variety of awards in both Ireland and the US: Best New Poet 2007 (Meridian Press, Virginia University) First Prize in The Listowel Writers’ Single Poem Competition 2009 and she was selected by Poetry Ireland for their 2009 Introductions Series in recognition of her status as an emerging poet.I'm sure many more accolades will follow but for now It is hard for me to tell you about this book and do it justice, the best advice I can give you is to read it.If you buy only one poetry book this year, in fact if you only ever buy one book of poetry, buy this one.The cover itself is beautiful but that is almost an irrelevence to what's inside. It's not the wrong miracle at all.Brilliant is the only word for it,well there are much better ones like whoomahabba! And Fabbadabbbdabdabbooo! It's a fantstic book, Paul Durcan ,Eddie Izzard (years ago at his best) Salavador Dali ,even Ted Hughes all spring to mind but none quite fit, the book is uniquely Liz Gallagher,Totally unique.Everything from an angle that we didn't even know was an angle tumbling down a surreal hill that we could never climb and bumping into an oblique juxtaposition with a head turning, mind turning THUD!Zest and zing and humour and sadness and a fair bit of grit further in. We have love, we have war, we have people throwing shoes, we have fun, depth, darkness, we have life in all it's zest and zing all it's confusion and doubt and glory.In many ways it's mad to use words like surreal and juxtaposition for these lines and images that make perfect sense of themselves and the moment.They are beautiful poems and I'm going to start again and read one or two each day in my best chair with a quality beer and silence. This book would be great for poetry lovers but perhaps more importantly , it would be great for people who have never read poetry and for people who are totally pissed off with it.Everyone should read this book, they deserve it.I think 'POETRY' might not be a good enough word to describe this book. That royalties from this book go to the 'Sands' (The stillbirth and neonatal death charity) Is a small snapshot of the compassion and kindness that Liz exudes in every poem. Here is one of my favourites from the book.

A Poem that Thinks It Has Joined a Circus

A handkerchief is not an emotional holdall.

A cup of tea does not eradicate all-smothering sensations.

A hands-on approach is not the same as a hand-on-a shoulder

willing a chin to lift and an upper arm to stiffen.

A forehead resting on fingers does not imply that the grains

of sand in an hourglass have filtered through.

A set of eyes staring into space is not an indictment that the sun

came crashing down in the middle of the night.

A sigh that causes trembling and wobbly knees should be

henceforth and without warning trapped in a bell jar and retrained

to come out tinkling ivories with every gasp.

A poem trying to turn a sad feeling on it's head does not constitute

a real poem, it is a cancan poem,dancing on a pinhead

and walking a tightrope with arms pressed tightly by it's sides.

http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844715671.htm

Ps Liz will be stopping by Castle EEjit on her virtual world book tour sometime in Nov and I'm looking forward to that.