Life Under Water

Maura Dooley's poetry is remarkable for embracing both lyricism and political consciousness, for its fusion of head and heart. These qualities have won her wide acclaim. Helen Dunmore (in Poetry Review) admired her 'sharp and forceful' intelligence. Adam Thorpe praised her ability 'to enact and find images for complex feelings...Her poems have both great delicacy and an undeniable toughness...she manages to combine detailed domesticity with lyrical beauty, most perfectly in the metaphor of memory ' (Literary Review). These new poems take in the physical landscape, family and friendship, as well as the transience of both folklore and politics. In part an attempt to speak of what is submerged, they welcome that 'splash of cold water to the face' that tells us we're alive.