"Reading Janice Fitzpatrick-Simmons' Settler I am reminded in more than one way of Paul Valery's remark that "It is my life that is surprised." For in these poems which chart the course of a tireless inward journey, we are made to feel how the fates still blow their inexorable winds, and our lives are driven toward terrors and joys, losses and restorations, that are beyond our powers to forestall or foretell..." Sherod Santos

'Joyous celebration is the keynote in this triumphal homage to nature, fertility, love, human tolerance, and Ireland. Without rejecting New England values this warm, wide-ranging journey back to origins enriches our sense of home, our appreciation of the Ulster land and sea-scape and our understanding of women. One cannot imagine, now, the barren poetic life of this island if the Settler had not chosen to stay.' Medbh McGuckian

About the Author
 

Janice Fitzpatrick-Simmons was born in 1954 and educated in the USA. She has her M.A. from The University of New Hampshire and was The Assistant Director of The Robert Frost Place. She was a long time resident of Northern Ireland and is now living in Donegal. She is the co-founder of The Poets' House and programme director for the M.A. in Creative Writing at The Poets' House. She is widely published with poems appearing in Stand, Force 10, Janus, Writing Women, Cuirt Journal, The Irish University Graduate Review, The New Orleans Review, Fortnight, US1, The University of California Review. She appears regularly in The Honest Ulsterman and Poetry Ireland. She has read at The Irish Festival in Brighton, The University of Antwerp, The University of Mons Hainault, Notre Dame University Brussels, The University of Delaware, Vermont College, Brown University Bookshop, Bracknell Arts Centre, Reading Festival, Lancaster University, Bewleys Dublin, Eigse na Cuige, Cork, Letterkenny Arts Centre, Wexford Arts Centre, Dundalk Arts Festival, The Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, Queens University, Belfast etc.. She has one chap book and her second book Starting at Purgatory was published in 1999 by Salmon Poetry.

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