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Pigeon Songs is Derry-born Eoghan Wall’s second collection of poems from Seren after his much-praised debut, The Salt Harvest. From the first piece, ‘Angry Birds’ we have a sense of the poet’s themes and preoccupations; we have a richly metaphorical and densely allusive style, a pull towards formal metre and structures, most often the sonnet or a proto-sonnet with couplets, as here. There is also the occasional vigorous vulgarity, adding a touch of blue humor to the canvas, breaking up the formal rigor. Family is a potent presence in poems inspired by parents, grandparents(as here), partners, children. Parenthood weighs large as alternately joyful, terrifying, and essential to everyday existence. We are invited to stare, to mourn, to laugh, even to dance ‘The Rare Old Mountain Jig’ in this various, lively, compelling book.
