Sweeney as a Girl

Jaki McCarrick’s debut poetry collection opens with the title poem which recasts the crazed king of Irish legend as a modern-day female struggling to cope with the distractions and pressures of our age.

London-born, and raised there and in Co. Louth, again and again McCarrick is drawn to the exploration of difference, of otherness, her keen eye seeing never just place alone, but glimpses of the longer narratives (intact or otherwise) of connection and belonging.

Throughout, the various roles of daughter, writer, friend, lover and neighbour are interrogated, with more than once a voice (from mythology or history or the world of art) delivering a surprising new persective on what we thought we knew or take for granted.

＂This is a rich, original, and energetic collection, concerned with modernity as much as memory-mining. Over and again readers will return to, and bask in, the electrifying language and unique spirit of these poems. Just beautiful.＂ - Nuala O’Connor, author of Menagerie

＂’The richness of these poems can’t be underestimated ... Language dances in McCarrick’s hands, and her writing is beautiful, electric and essential.＂

- Mary O’Donnell