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The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven
Poetry. "Mairead Byrne's poems are moving microcosms in which a keen power of observation and playful imagination fuse with the minutiae of daily life to create small missives of quirky and insightful documentation. Her source material includes everything from the weather to credit card bills to news reports to human body parts to animal pelts and all of these seemingly di...more
Paperback, First, 208 pages
Published
March 15th 2010
by Publishing Genius
(first published 2010)
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Just when I begin to suspect that I have stumbled upon every author who is willing to experiment with the definition of literature or embrace language at its most elementary and beautiful or try to express something significant without any particular significance, I somehow come across (or in this case, I win) a book or a writer that puts that suspicion to rest. I do not know what happened to Mairéad Byrne's poetry blog (whatever did happen, I can't access it for the life of me without a compute...more
As I read this I dog-eared my "favorites" until the book was pretty severely dog-eared. The section called "Everyday Lunacy" was by far my favorite. Take for example -
Sign
Fresh Today!
Wild fries!
Caught and squashed this morning!
Giant fries!
That was my favorite until I read Sleep ("Be your own boss!"), which was my favorite until I read Where Did You Grow Up?
Do you mean why did I grow up?
No – where did you grow up?
Do you mean how did I grow up?
No – where did you grow up?
Do you mean when?
No – just...more
Sign
Fresh Today!
Wild fries!
Caught and squashed this morning!
Giant fries!
That was my favorite until I read Sleep ("Be your own boss!"), which was my favorite until I read Where Did You Grow Up?
Do you mean why did I grow up?
No – where did you grow up?
Do you mean how did I grow up?
No – where did you grow up?
Do you mean when?
No – just...more
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The Best of (What’s Left of) Heaven, a new release from Publishing Genius, is a collection of poems compiled from Mairéad Byrne’s blog, Heaven. The collection is ordered into thirteen parts and there’s a sense of slow build-up, of climb, climax, and linger.
The opening sections “Calendar” and “Everyday Lunacy” are whimsical and provocative, flirt with the reader. There’s a shift in tone and emotion once we arrive at the third section “Found.” I sat straighter in my chair, fully engaged. Each line...more
The opening sections “Calendar” and “Everyday Lunacy” are whimsical and provocative, flirt with the reader. There’s a shift in tone and emotion once we arrive at the third section “Found.” I sat straighter in my chair, fully engaged. Each line...more
Heaven is the premiere travel guide for poets who are curious about found poems, pattern poems, collage. I predict that every few pages you'll go "oh my god I'm allowed to do that?" and journey off to the paint store, the newspaper, a good cuddle, in search of building blocks for your work. In Heaven, Byrne reminds us that there are goodies everywhere and she makes it look easy. She can turn a color into a noun! It's not so easy, but the expedition is fun.
This a great read, the kind of poetry book that makes me keep thinking "I want to share this poem! Even with non-poetry people!" Short, funny poems eventually give way to dense, interesting prose poetry, with some collage stuff in the mix as well. Great, great book.
These poems are a lot of fun!
I did a video review of this book at http://www.wingchairbooks.com/2010/09...
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