Shoulder Tap

SHORTLISTED FOR THE POETRY PIGOTT PRIZE IN ASSOCIATION WITH LISTOWEL WRITERS' WEEK
Throughout these poems, with their roaming sense of first-person, the speakers' minds are cavernous and echoic, primal and sophisticated, observant and raw, in and out of control of themselves. The effect is unpredictable and thrilling, at once a dark art and an illumination of unease and loss and wishfulness. The collection features disquieting songs of a mutable self alongside poignant elegies, interior journeys and subtle (and not so subtle) ripostes to the legacy of Trumpism - while elsewhere encounters with ghostly feet and tongues of fire consort with riffs on Baudelaire, Rilke and Laforgue. These poems twinkle with mischief and humour, making for a pungent and haunting read. Riordan - a poet whose strong, rippling influence is felt by all in his wake - affirms his reputation at the forefront of contemporary poetry.

Maurice Riordan was born in Co. Cork. His first book, A Word from the Loki (1995), was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, as was his most recent, The Water Stealer (2013). He is Emeritus Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam, and a former editor of The Poetry Review (2013-17).