A poignant exploration of loss, love, and resilience through poetry.The Magpie and the Childdelves into the depths of grief following the death of a child, Emily. Catriona Clutterbuck's poems navigate the emotional landscape of mourning, blending personal experience with religious and metaphorical resonances.
This collection offers solace and understanding to those grappling with loss, exploring themes of faith, memory, and the enduring power of love. Through vivid imagery and heartfelt expression, Clutterbuck creates a space for reflection and healing, inviting readers to confront their own experiences with grief and find meaning in the face of tragedy. Perfect for readers of poetry, bereavement literature, and those seeking comfort in times of sorrow.
“I can’t think of another poetry collection with such sustained power to involve the reader directly, as it makes its way into the affecting canon of child-elegy extending from the Middle English Pearl to Ben Jonson’s best piece of poetry and onwards. This is a haunting series of memories and insights by a poet of immense imagistic gifts, illustrating incontestably poetry’s often claimed ability to help in the most demanding of circumstances. To read this book is to have your capacity for sympathy moved on to a higher plane. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece of sentiment and understanding.” —Bernard O’Donoghue
Born in 1964,Catriona Clutterbuckgrew up in a farming family in County Tipperary, close to the area where she now lives. She worked as a primary school teacher from the mid-1980s to the early ’90s, before completing postgraduate studies in the University of Oxford. Her poems have been published inBoyne Berries;Crannóg;Cyphers;Oxford Poetry;Poetry Ireland Review;Staying Human: New Poems for Staying Alive(edited by Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, 2020);The Blue Nib;Thel³¤
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