Off Duty

Fiction & Literature, Poetry, British & Irish
Cover of the book Off Duty by Katie Donovan, Bloodaxe Books
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Author: Katie Donovan ISBN: 9781780373171
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Publication: September 29, 2016
Imprint: Bloodaxe Books Language: English
Author: Katie Donovan
ISBN: 9781780373171
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
Publication: September 29, 2016
Imprint: Bloodaxe Books
Language: English

This powerful new collection combines Katie Donovan's unflinching insight into our human foibles with her exceptional descriptive gifts. The years of her late husband's throat cancer are charted in poems by turns tender, harsh and darkly humorous. Donovan gives voice to the carer's duty of being the one who watches, and contains, what is both a searing tragedy and a chainlink of domestic chores. Meanwhile the sulky electrician and the garrulous taxi driver are part of a cast of unlikely extras who provide a contextual chorus from the everyday world that inevitably carries on.

Donovan grasps talismans of survival: birds foraging in the snow; her daughter's singing – which lights up the hospice in midwinter – and her son's success at soccer. The title-poem resists the classic definition of the grieving widow, instead capturing one of Donovan's enduring motifs – the moment when the mask slips and the true human response is released.

From the reviews of Rootling: New & Selected Poems:

'The voice of these poems is unpretentious, funny, earthy, honest and bursting with energy... It's her craft, however, that creates the illusion of high-spirited spontaneity and buoyancy... In this new book Donovan's remarkable fertility with imagery serves a profound exploration of the first and last mysteries of the flesh.' – Peggy O'Brien, The Irish Times

'These are subjects at the core of human experience, made poignantly luminous by Donovan's assured touch and uncluttered poetic language.' – Dr Charlotte Beyer, Iota

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This powerful new collection combines Katie Donovan's unflinching insight into our human foibles with her exceptional descriptive gifts. The years of her late husband's throat cancer are charted in poems by turns tender, harsh and darkly humorous. Donovan gives voice to the carer's duty of being the one who watches, and contains, what is both a searing tragedy and a chainlink of domestic chores. Meanwhile the sulky electrician and the garrulous taxi driver are part of a cast of unlikely extras who provide a contextual chorus from the everyday world that inevitably carries on.

Donovan grasps talismans of survival: birds foraging in the snow; her daughter's singing – which lights up the hospice in midwinter – and her son's success at soccer. The title-poem resists the classic definition of the grieving widow, instead capturing one of Donovan's enduring motifs – the moment when the mask slips and the true human response is released.

From the reviews of Rootling: New & Selected Poems:

'The voice of these poems is unpretentious, funny, earthy, honest and bursting with energy... It's her craft, however, that creates the illusion of high-spirited spontaneity and buoyancy... In this new book Donovan's remarkable fertility with imagery serves a profound exploration of the first and last mysteries of the flesh.' – Peggy O'Brien, The Irish Times

'These are subjects at the core of human experience, made poignantly luminous by Donovan's assured touch and uncluttered poetic language.' – Dr Charlotte Beyer, Iota

More books from Bloodaxe Books

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Cover of the book A Quarter of an Hour by Katie Donovan
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Cover of the book Greetings from Grandpa by Katie Donovan
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Cover of the book Lifesaving Poems by Katie Donovan
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