Poetry Ireland Review Issue 145 Editorial
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 145
:
Victoria Kennefick
Poetry Ireland Review 145, edited by Victoria Kennefick, is now available to order online.
It features new poems from Aoife Lyall, Victoria Chang, Joe Carrick-Varty, Éireann Lorsung, and Padraig Regan as well as work from emerging poets Cora Crampton and Kasandra Ferguson, among many others. Irish-language editor Aifric Mac Aodha’s selection includes poetry from Áine Ní Ghlinn, Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin, and an essay on the poetry of Deirdre Brennan from Proinsias Ó Drisceoil.
The issue also remembers Michael Longley in a eulogy by Fran Brearton.
In the 2025 spring issue, there are a total of 26 books reviewed which speak on displacement, how to find firm ground in a world of constant change and chaos, and the complex intersections of identity and place. There are reviews of exciting new collections from Charles Lang, Patrick Cotter, and Anne Fitzgerald, as well as the highly original debut collections from Scott McKendry and Jeremy Haworth.
Other prose in this issue includes Caroline Bird’s essay ‘Poets and Clowns’, featuring exactly what you think it does, along with an interview with Eileen Myles reflecting on their journey as a ‘pathetic’ poet in New York, conducted by Hugo Jeudy and Lika Gorskaia.
The visual art in Issue 145, which delves into conceptual and sensory dimensions, is from Aisling Conroy, a multidisciplinary artist using painting, print, sound and experimental film, based in Dublin.
Poetry Ireland Review Issue 145 will be available to purchase online and in leading bookshops around Ireland from May 2025. Subscriber and contributor copies will arrive in the post in May.
Editorial
From Victoria Kennefick's Editorial:
One of the many joys of editing this publication was composing the call for submissions – an airy daydream that became flesh, and it felt gleefully greedy to request poets to respond to the Nikki Giovanni assertion I have long pondered: “If you don’t understand yourself, you don’t understand anybody else.” What does it mean to understand the self? Is it ultimately a fool’s errand, given we are mostly compromised of H2O, a lick and a promise? Childhood, family, education, relationships, work – and their attendant losses, failures, wins and successes impact how we present to the world. As Anaïs Nin states, “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.” The submissions arrived – a troupe of wonderful, challenging, exciting, brilliant, poems – carnivals of words and images.