Michael Coady 1939-2024 (Photo by Martina Coady)
Michael Coady was born in 1939 in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary and sadly passed away 25 March 2024. Winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry in 1979 and the O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award (2004), he held the Heimbold Chair of Irish Studies at Villanova University in Spring 2005.
He has published six collections with The Gallery Press: Two for a Woman, Three for a Man (1980), Oven Lane (1987, a Poetry Ireland Choice. Revised 2014), All Souls (1997), One Another (2003), Going By Water (2009) and Given Light (2017). Relay Books published Full Tide, a miscellany, in 1999.
The epic story of Irish emigration to America has been a significant element in his work in relation to lost family ties and their ’emotional archaeology’. In his critically-acclaimed All Souls, and again in One Another and Going By Water, he successfully integrated poetry, prose and his own photographs in works of orchestrated unity. His writing emerges from an intimately known anchorage of place, with abiding themes of transience and continuity, chance and memory, set against the human interplay of unsung lives and destinies. Humour and compassion are notable in his work, as is musical reference: a self-styled ‘lapsed trombonist’, his sustaining passion for music ranges eclectically from classical to jazz and Irish traditional music and in 1996 he self-published The Well of Spring Water, a personal memoir of longstanding friends, the Clare musicians Pakie and Micho Russell.
Michael Coady was a member of Aosdána.
Information from Gallery Press
Most of Michael's Books are now out of print, our stock is very low. Michael's Poetry Collections are also available to borrow from the Seán Healy Memorial Library, Carrick-on-Suir.
In Going by Water, a beautifully conceived, meticulously assembled collection, Michael Coady, laureate of the home place, ruminates on and records the traces left by our lives. From the ‘rhapsody of now’ through ‘words of love and grief, / the earth’s embrace, its constancy’ Going by Water celebrates enduring values and the mysterious triumphs of ordinary experience and everyday ritual. It recounts inherited as well as overheard and re-imagined stories. It ranges from the river traditions of his native town to take in a new Ireland and the newfound locales of Paris and beyond with their communities of the living and dead. While it sounds elegiac notes it pulses to the beat of music as a portal to transcendence.
Symphonic in its orchestration, integrating poetry, prose narratives and the author’s photography, Going by Water elicits from its catchment a universal human measure. With All Souls and One Another it forms a trilogy unique in our literature.
. . .a large and ambitious project. Although Coady threads river images through each of the book’s five sections, he is more a chronicler than a shaping participant in Going By Water, inviting other voices into the book and relaxing in their lively and often very funny company. An exception is ‘The Nun in Prison’, which builds on Coady’s fine early work on Irish emigrant experience. Here and elsewhere in Going By Water Coady tells complicated stories with great economy and emotional directness. The book’s overarching and sociable sweep does not preclude more formal, brief and private lyrics. And Coady’s feeling for what might seem ‘beneath notice’ is evident in the beautiful photographs that stud this big generous book. — John McAuliffe, Irish Times
Price: €13.90
(Information from Gallery Press)
Given Light, Michael Coady’s most moving book to date, incorporates — in his own inimitable style — poetry, prose and photographs. Increasingly alert to ‘time’s undertow’, Coady finds intimations of transcendence in the everyday. ‘Dear Afterlife’ is his account in verse of the funeral of Dennis O’Driscoll; ‘A State of Light’ is a Connemara sequence set to music by Bill Whelan, while ‘On the Eve of a Tree-felling’ is shaped by undercuts of intimate emotion.
Coady dramatically affirms ‘woman’s death-defying miracle’ of childbirth in ‘The Other Half’ and also offers the deeply affecting ‘Palestrina and Amigo Holden of The Hill’ — invoking the ghost of the Renaissance composer to attend a country music ceremony and ‘send-off’.
Given Light is a book of memory and reimagining infused throughout with Michael Coady’s distinctive music.
Given Light comes out of a life, and gives due precedence to human life over art, and since this is the life of a poet, his unpretentious skill in handling his themes allows them to grow with their natural momentum and claim their real weight.— Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Dublin Review of Books
‘This is a quite remarkable collection of work. It rather goes beyond poetry, though poetry is its main driver. There’s great passion underpinning everything here, and a longing, whether it be in Raftery’s wish to go back to Mayo, or Coady’s musing on a possibly mislaid life as a trombone player. Not a loose note of sentimentality sounds anywhere. Life happens, and one is left with photos, things jotted in margins, and the empty margins themselves. Coady gives light and meaning to a past which is both our own individually and our own in the sense that it is shared. This is a book of sharing.’ — Fred Johnston, Books Ireland
Price: €12.95
(Information from Gallery Press)
One Another is a welcome and worthy successor to Michael Coady's much-loved All Souls. Poetry, prose and illustration are integrated in a cumulative work of gravity and compassion. The title poem is prelude to a set of variations on motifs of community, mortality and memory, emerging from an intimately known anchorage of place.
The writer’s voice is joined by a chorale of ‘overheard’ communal tones, in oral mode and various moods. The book’s inclusive reach finds room for play, as in ‘Textament’, or its guest versions of ‘The Gift of Tongues’.
A personal crisis deepens perspective and heralds renewal in ‘The Place of Hurt and Healing’. The human interplay of unsung lives and destinies suffuses One Another ’in the carnal war / with time that’s always lost / but never conceded’.
'Sureness of technique . . . unlaboured control of dialect in the ‘overheard’ prose stories . . . compelling and heartening . . . In Coady’s work the local is never patronised; without ever being sentimental or mawkish, it is an accepting view of the world. At the end you still wonder how Coady does it, how he achieves this humane sense of natural goodness, the most difficult of all things to represent convincingly.' — Bernard O’Donoghue, The Irish Times
Price: €13.90
(Information from Gallery Press)
Oven Lane was a Poetry Ireland Choice when it was published first in 1987. This revised and amplified edition includes poems from the award-winning Two for a Woman, Three for a Man. It offers poems arising from the history and community of Michael Coady’s native Carrick-on-Suir and extends to a search for emigrant family links in America.
In Poetry Ireland Review Terence Brown noted the warm, emotional openness of this work ‘in which generous feeling and a respect for individuals and the sacred quality of life itself find engaging expression’.
Oven Lane anticipates the broader canvas of Michael Coady’s widely admired compendia, All Souls, One Another and Going by Water.
Price: €11.95
(Information from Gallery Press)
Beyond Stillness by Mark Roper, Dedalus Press, 2022. Price: €12.50
“Mark Roper’s trademark spare, spiritual response to the natural world is intensified in Beyond Stillness …. ‘Drive’ details a stunning redemption …. Roper has an unerring sense of the gulfs between the miracle and damnation, its beginning and its end.” Martina Evans, The Irish Times
Bindweed by Mark Roper, Dedalus Press, 2017. Price: €12.50
“Nature sits easy in the poet's sphere of influence in Mark Roper's impressive new collection of poems, Bindweed, which is a profoundly humane and often moving work.” Paddy Kehoe, RTE
A Gather of Shadow by Mark Roper, Dedalus Press, 2012.
Price €10
“Although A Gather of Shadow reflects tenderness and loss so powerfully it’s not a heavy read. This isn’t only because several of the poems have light moments. Throughout there is a sense of how much life’s small and large events matter. Mark Roper’s writing sends that shiver down my spine which is the sign of true poetry. His images have become part of my consciousness. What greater praise could I give to this book?”
Myra Schneider, Acumen
Even So: New & Selected Poems by Mark Roper, Introduction by Carol Rumens, Dedalus Press, 2008.
Price: €10
“This book contains so many perfect lyrics as to make any writer jealous. But how can you resent poems such as ‘Scythe’, ‘Hummingbird’ or ‘The Crossing’, which sheerly take the breath away?” John Killick, The North
GRACE WELLS was born in London in 1968, lived in Co Tipperary for many years and is now based in Ennistymon, Co. Clare. Nature, spirit of place and ecological concern have been large themes in her writing ever since the publication of her debut children’s novel Gyrfalcon (O’Brien Press, 2002), which won the Eilís Dillon Best Newcomer Award and was an International White Ravens Choice. Her debut poetry collection When God has been Called Away to Greater Things (Dedalus Press, 2010), won the Rupert and Eithne Strong Best First Collection Award, and was shortlisted for the London Festival Fringe New Poetry Award. With her second poetry collection Fur (Dedalus Press, 2015), Wells moved more deeply into eco-poetics and eco-feminism. Fur was lauded in Poetry Ireland Review as ‘a book that enlarges the possibilities of poetry’, and her poem Otter was Highly Commended by the Forward Prize. She has reviewed Irish poetry for a wide range of journals, and has taught and mentored emerging writers on behalf of Poetry Ireland, Words Ireland, and for many County Council Arts Offices. In 2018 Grace Wells moved to County Clare, which has informed her new work with a coastal, marine light. Many poems for her latest book, The Church of the Love of the World (May, 2022) are accompanied by eco-poetry-films.
REVIEW EXCERPT
“A poet of depth and elegance, of sparkling intuition and studied formality, Grace Wells is one of the twelve apostles at the feast of poetry. Her work will endure for its beautiful seriousness, its style, its sense of purpose” – Thomas McCarthy
“A poet of depth and elegance, of sparkling intuition and studied formality, Grace Wells is one of the twelve apostles at the feast of poetry. Her work will endure for its beautiful seriousness, its style, its sense of purpose” – Thomas McCarthy
Winner of the 2011 Rupert and Eithne Strong Award for a first collection of poems. €11.50
Grace Wells’ second collection explores our relationship with this “astonishing world”. €12.50
'I Wonder' is Eileen's first Poetry Chapbook. It travels from her childhood aged six when she wrote her first poem on the back of a wooden ironing board to her 60th birthday.
In her lyrics, Acheson celebrates life: her personal experience embeds itself in Nature. She honours sod and rivers, branches and trees. Colours–purples, yellows, and brown–are her birthright.
To learn more about the writer www.tellyourstorywitheileen.ie
and hear/read 'I Wonder' extracts click here.
Price: €12
'A Life to be lived' - Wonderful, wonderful debut poetry collection by Jenny Cox
Beautiful publication, "Filled with love, romance, birth, grief, gratitude, nature and humanity" - Eileen Acheson
"This is a collection that does not shy away from the realities of a life as it is lived" - Margaret O'Brien
"The precise imagery of these beautifully crafted poems reminds us what a gift it is to walk this earth' - Jan Haag
Cover illustration by Jenny's sister Victoria .
Price: €12.50
Currently out of stock, but if interested in buying a copy please let us know.
Check out Jenny and Victoria's Illustrated Poetry 'Inky Frog' page here
Write Minds: Poetry & Wellness
'Winter Miscellany' by the Southeast Scribes - Maura Barrett, Brian Clancy, Pat Griffin, Paul Keating, Paul Maher and Jasper Murphy...beautiful anthology, illustrations from Raheen College and Colville Cheitinn CTI, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.
"These winter themed poems and stories are eclectic in their variety and narrative approaches. There is an adventure on every page, we witness the entire spectrum of human emotions and experience. The characters get into all manner of scrapes. One swings for an ex with a hurley, one witnesses his own funeral and another navigates the shady streets of 1980’s Moscow. These deftly crafter stories are complimented by haunting winter themed artwork by the students of CTI in Clonmel. The 'Southeast Scribes' stamp an indelible mark."
Price: €12.50
"'Only Connect' is a collection of prose and poetry from the Poetry Plus writers’ collective, which moved to Zoom at the beginning of the pandemic and attracted writers not only from the southeast of Ireland but also, thanks to technology, much farther afield.
Much of 'Only Connect' was initially written during the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic, from March to June 2020, and it offers a valuable and unique insight into, and record of, those times. Published by the wonderful Tipperary-based (but with a worldwide reach) Beir Bua Press, with huge thanks to Michelle King.
All royalties go to the neonatal and stillbirth charity, Féileacáin Ireland. It would make a lovely and unique gift."
Read more about this project and poetry collection here.
Price: €10
Theresa Bridget Jones lives in Ireland near the Comeragh Mountains. Theresa has published two narrative poetry collections; Servant of Time is her first book, she also writes short stories, and memoir pieces with a sense of irony or honesty. Waterfall of Intentions also published with Amazon is her second poetry collection, featuring a memoir story which was part of the prestigious Irish IMRO awards for KCLR, Women's Bits and the poem "Colour of Belonging" printed in Undercover Wexford, "Annagassan Beach" first printed in a Tipperary poetry collection by Margaret Galvin.
Theresa writes about the places in Ireland she loves and feels that the page is a grave for memories, a place for observations. Writing is a way to find inner peace and lay to rest the ghosts of the past. She has had pieces published on RTE Radio – Seascapes programme, KCLR programme Women’s Bits; and in Fudoki Online Magazine.
She is an active member of local writing groups and takes part in Spoken Word events and local festivals
SERVANT OF TIME - Poetry Collection by Theresa Jones
This poetry collection paints a portrait of life, one women’s journey told through poems that reflect the reality of many women. To shine a ray of hope. It is told in four sections. People & Life, cancer, dementia, suicide; family lost, taken before their time as in Months Mind, White Roses, I Wander. Nature Heals, a mindful journey through the Comeragh Mountains in Bagwells Folly, Around Clonmel, Apples and others. The wild isolation of the Nanny Water Cottage in Laytown. How the environment restores our sanity in Footsteps and reduces stress through the call of the blackbird, rushing water of a mountain stream, rustle of leaves on trees in the wind or crunch beneath our feet in Autumn. A balm for the soul. Relationships, the resilience of women, the support others give or not in Walls, Gilded Cage, Street Angel – House Devil. The possibility of restoring self-esteem to endure life’s challenges, slay your dragons, calm your anxiety; then as a phoenix rise to rebuild your life and value your skills. Observations and Memories is an ironic look at how people treat each other and the environment. To know that True Friends will tell you if your knickers are showing or lipstick is smudged. In Remember Me, a look at local politicians and how they network. A poetry collection to remind us that strangers can often treat us better than we treat ourselves until we learn to love the stranger within.
This poetry collection is currently out of stock, but can be purchased on Amazon here
WATERFALL OF INTENTIONS - Poetry Collection by Theresa Jones
This narrative poetry collection is told in four sections: Reflections on Life & Nature, Relationships, Observations and Memories. I write about domestic abuse, unhealthy relationships that cause anxiety, overwhelm and stress, human relationships with nature and ironic observations of human nature, as in the Mask that is often worn to fool the outside world. Many of the poems hold a mirror to dive deep into where anxieties came from and how they can be banished by peeking into the dark corners of the mind. In Memories, I write about childhood summers in Ireland, Kent and London.
The overall message is hope, happiness and confidence. Hope that things improve, happiness in what today has to offer and confidence that you are strong enough.
This poetry collection is currently out of stock, but can be purchased on Amazon here
Local writer Eddie Reade published his debut poetry collection 'My Auld Town' December 2020. Price €15
My Auld Town is a collection of poetry inspired by the sights, history and people of Carrick-on-Suir.
There are 53 poems in this collection.
TOWN PARK
The speckled golden sunshine,
Simmers through the chestnut trees,
Whereas young and wild and reckless,
We climbed, fell, skinned our knees.
The seats once placed around the back,
Now sadly are all gone,
Etched with a millon lovers initials,
And crap lyrics from pop songs.
The big steel slide no longer stands,
It seemed to touch the sky,
Heated by the summer sunshine,
It would burn your short pants thigh.
Around Each Bend - Poetry and Prose by Tipperary Writers. Editor Margaret Galvin.
This collection features 48 wonderful Tipperary writers, many are part of Writing Changes Lives - Poetry Plus group with Margaret O'Brien.
Limited copies. Price €10
Margaret Galvin has lived in Wexford Town for over 40 years where she has worked variously with the library service, as Editor of Ireland's Own and in social care. Her work is well represented in literary journals, most recently The Honest Ulsterman, The North, The Lake and in encounters.net
Her collections include The Waiting Room (Doghouse), The Wardrobe Mistress and The Scattering Lawns (Lapwing). In 2019, in collaboration with Cahir Historical Society she brought out a collection of poetry, The Finer Points, detailing the experiences growing up in Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s. She has recently compiled and edited a collection of prose and poetry, bringing together the work of 48 contemporary Tipperary writers in a collection entitled Around Each Bend. This project was funded by the Arts Office, Tipperary County Council. A recipient of the Brendan Kennelly Award, critics regard her work as “gritty and unsentimental”.
'Wild and Wonderful' poetry booklet with 33 beautiful Poems from Applefest Poetry lane.
Summer 2020 Clonmel Applefest put a call out to writers to write a poem 25 lines or under based on the theme Wild and Wonderful...33 writers answered the call and their poems were displayed during the Festival and were gathered and printed in this lovely little booklet. Price €6.
'Inside the Lane' poetry collection booklet with 40 beautiful Poems from Applefest Poetry lane 2022.
Price: €10
Curated, edited and layout by Jenny Cox & Eileen Acheson of Write Minds, Poetry & Wellness.
