Poetry about how we shape what is lost or past, and how it shapes us. Bernard O'Donoghue explores anchorage as a place we create for ourselves from memory and story. The Ireland of his youth is vibrant in color and precise in detail, and while he recognizes the power of the past, he also questions it: 'I wish I'd never started on this story; / It may have been a dream, or maybe not . . .' O'Donoghue's informal and sometimes playful tone reflects a poet disarming themselves as well as their reader.

Here are the paradoxes at the core of human nature: what we are most attached to can ultimately be what holds us back; the reluctance to return may stem from the fear of finding ourselves excluded.

‘O'Donoghue's poems serve as an example of how to write poetry that truly matters.’ PN Review

‘The poignancy of O'Donoghue's migratory imagination is ... the perfect travel companion.’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Engaging and straightforward language ... full of gentle, sometimes subtle flashes of humor.’ London Magazine

‘As with everything O'Donoghue writes, the more you look, the more you see.’ Scotsman

Pages: 64, Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm