Cross-Talk

Acerbic, cool, controlled, Siobhán Campbell gives us poetry with attitude. Many of the stories here start in Ireland and although the cadences are sweetly lyrical, the narratives are otherwise. Politics here is intrinsic to the tales of the sly, the warped, the landlady 'Mean as Ireland in the 50's'. Nature is deftly invoked as a counterpoint to human illusions. The apparently personal poems here are cast in a more tender, yet characteristically unsentimental light.

Campbell brings the lyric close to the conflicts that spur our passions, both personal and political. She often takes a dialectic approach, at times employing rhythmic narratives which act as an antidote to stark subject matter. While full of wit, this collection challenges the reader by dealing with fundamental questions of borders, identity, violence and responsibility.

"The tension between the reality of violence in human nature and the aesthetics of her poetry is keenly felt. Her adroitness of balance is striking."
S.J. Litherland

"Poems that are fierce, luminous and clear-eyed; torpedoes lined with feather strokes."
Bernard O'Donoghue

"… there is an outstanding ear for the music of language… the rhymes and half-rhymes give the verse a rewarding sureness and slyness. Siobhán Campbell's sense of cadenced disturbance marks her out as someone worth listening to with attention."
Robert Crawford

Siobhán Campbell was born in Dublin, she is a graduate of University College, Dublin. She spent a number of years in New York and San Francisco and worked as Managing Editor of Wolfhound Press before joining Faculty at Kingston University in London. Widely published in the USA and UK, she has won awards in the National, Troubadour and Wigtown International competitions. Her other collections are The Permanent Wave and The cold that burns, (Blackstaff Press) and chapbooks That Water Speaks in Tongues (Templar Poetry) and Darwin among the machines (Rack Press).