on arrivals of breath – by Anne F Elvey
 

 

"In her arresting new collection, On arrivals of breath, Anne Elvey implicitly suggests there's little difference, if any, between a well­crafted prayer and a well-crafted poem. Both serve the same purpose: they use words to take us beyond words. These poems are never static or predictable - they move from the elegiac to the imagistic to the meditative with the ease of a poet writing with complete control and utmost confidence. Elvey' s poetry is a moral force, but it's not reductive; forensically dissected, the complexities of ethical questions do not immobilise here. They' re poems taking us beyond the physical world by leading us deeper into it, and they regularly open us to new and unexpected possibilities. As Elvey puts it so vividly in 'The sense is porous to the thing', 'this thing survives otherwise/ as if poetry were a bone-sliver/ picked from ash.' This is a wonderful collection. I can't recommend it highly enough."
- JOHN FOULCHER

"This is the joy of poetry: poems that tend the soul, sing to the heart and challenge the consciousness. In this collection, Anne Elvey opens a window on to her eco-soul providing readers with that rare gift of an intimate interspecies connection. She does this in poems that are widely imagined, deeply felt and beautifully crafted. The poems in this collection are set against a backdrop of theological thought, traditional texts made new by the importance of the work of attending to the world and the craft of a poet who shows us what it is to care deeply."
- E A GLEESON