Gerry McGrath

Rooster, Gerry McGrath's second book of poems, observes with painterly precision the commonplaces of our experience, creating landscapes of emotional range and intensity. Biography, history, geography are interwoven in potent new forms: a lover's fragile caress, the 'expeditionary skill' of a dentist, the death of irony celebrated by crows helpless with laughter, a green tree burning in a red room. In its second and third sections the book is emboldened by novel experiences and ancient panoramas: the isle of Arran is transmogrified, and a collaboration inspired by the bosky latitudes of the French artists' commune Grez-sur-Loing adds colour, scope and depth. In the two concluding sections Rooster is at its most ambitious, sketching expansive, rehabilitated vistas of a world that is haunting and new.