The Sphere of Birds

by Ciaran Berry

The Sphere of Birds, Ciaran Berry’s debut collection of poems, effortlessly moves back and forth between here and there, then and now, the personal and the historic, the modern and the mythic. Berry imagines the transatlantic journeys of John James Audubon and reveals his own heartfelt experience moving from his first house. The poems take as their subject such varied experiences as an eye exam in Manhattan and chasing rabbits around a beach in Donegal. These poems have a strong sense of place, whether it’s the imagined space of Coney Island in 1903 or the playground of Berry’s childhood convent school. The Sphere of Birds delights in forging unlikely links, earthed in the stuff of paintings and in the lives of poets, artists, and the occasional saint. Drawing on the poet’s life in Ireland and the United States, the poems explore the joy and grief found in those places. Moving from rural Ireland to the heart of New York City, from local detail to historical specifics, and from the experienced occasion to the imagined or interpreted event, Berry’s poems effectively master shifts in both time and space. Berry delves into the lives of artists, obscure historical figures, and other poets for inspiration. He embraces elements of both Irish and American poetry, paying tribute as much to the spirit of Larry Levis as to that of W. B. Yeats. Accessible, immediate, and visceral, The Sphere of Birds offers a musicality that is increasingly rare in contemporary poetry.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 2008

About the author

Ciaran Berry is an Irish-American poet. He grew up in Carna, County Galway, and Falcarragh, County Donegal. He graduated from NYU, a New York Times Fellow, and now teaches at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, where he lives with his family. His work has appeared in AGNI, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, and The New Republic. The Sphere of Birds (2008), his first full-length collection, won the Crab Orchard Award, the Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, and the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. A second book, The Dead Zoo, was published by The Gallery Press in Ireland in 2013.

Reviews

[Greta]

Pleasant, if difficult sometimes to take in at bedtime.

[Contrary Magazine]

http://www.contrarymagazine.com/Contr...