Journey to the Sleeping Whale

By: Jane Robinson

€12.00

Jane Robinson is a poet of serious intent. More importantly she is a poet with enough range and depth of imagination and technique to give expression to that intent. Her poems are firmly grounded in the physical world. This is one reason why her sometimes daring flights of the imagination seem so real, so immediate and so credible. Throughout her work the combination of observation and description is confident and authoritat...

ISBN	978-1-912561-37-7
Pub Date	Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Cover Image	Bertie Pringle.
Page Count	86
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Jane Robinson is a poet of serious intent. More importantly she is a poet with enough range and depth of imagination and technique to give expression to that intent. Her poems are firmly grounded in the physical world. This is one reason why her sometimes daring flights of the imagination seem so real, so immediate and so credible. Throughout her work the combination of observation and description is confident and authoritative and is part of the fabric of her poems, which use the language and observational power of the scientific mind to make wonderfully serious and seriously wonderful poems.

Paddy Bushe

Jane Robinson’s use of language is always interesting and always strong. The theme which for me comes over most forcefully – that of our wanton destruction of the natural world, including ourselves – is not only one of urgency but Robinson approaches it in ways that surprise and shock the reader to attention.

Geraldine Mitchell

Jane Robinson’s poetry is bold and subtle, richly underlaid with scholarship and exploration of concerns for the earth and all creatures. Better than any poet I know she makes us aware, without righteousness or rhetoric, of the possible reality that we may destroy ourselves. We need such poets to save the earth and one another. This first collection already has me anticipating Jane Robinson’s future books while treasuring this one.

David Ray

Jane Robinson

Jane Robinson is an Irish poet who worked as a scientist in Ireland, India, and the US for ten years before turning to writing, to express and explore the urgent issue of environmental change. Her poems have been recognised by awards including the Strokestown International Poetry Prize and the Shine Strong Award for her debut collection, Journey to the Sleeping Whale published by Salmon in 2018. She was educated at Trinity College Dublin and the California Institute of Technology.

At the Seaside

Where are they, those tables,

the vertebrae

of whales washed up

on Ballynamona strand?

And where are the knives

we used to find,

razor sharp shells

black-blue strewn by the sea?

And where are our plates,

oysters pearl-

glazed, carefully placed

with seaweed meals

All eaten. In our sleep we have eaten

the tables,

the knives

and the plates.

Other Titles from Jane Robinson

Island and Atoll

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Journey to the Sleeping Whale / Jane Robinson