The View from Here

. . . and into the stillness / comes my knowing: we carry our daughters until they are too light to bear, then we carry our mothers; they are heavy as air.' I loved my life with a fierce joy,' Sara Berkeley proclaims in her follow up to Strawberry Thief, a book singled out by Dermot Bolger for its extraordinarily vivid freshness and sharp focus' by a unique and crystal clear Irish voice'. Since she published her first collection Sara Berkeley has been a distinctive, vibrant witness to the way people live. The View from Here is a compendium of her observations. Her habit of laughter / in the face of despair / will not be broken', because her tremulous, sensual poetry is built around a strong backbone. Again and again she finds reasons to march down Main Street / in your boots with your trumpet / and your heart in a suitcase'. Whether she considers Ireland from afar or her adopted California home, night horses or her young daughter, How It Will End' or a belovèd local cinema where when the lights go down . . . the music wears its white dress down the aisle', these bewitching poems resonate with thrilling details and surprise.