"Canavan's lyric voice is strong and sure, almost lilting, certainly musical, and provides a metrical spine that can hold up any subject."
Patricia Monaghan, Booklist

"Canavan understands the power of the lyric; her poems overlap and fuse, creating an, at times, rough and richly patterned collection. Colour is everywhere, used as the painters brush to transform, to make real"
Poetry Ireland Review

"Throughout this impressive collection the attentive reader will be rewarded by her capacities for sharp observation, low-keyed, economical wording, and carefully restrained ironies, whether writing about truck drivers or nurses, Cork patriots or Welsh ironies."
Irish Examiner

Rosemary Canavan was born in Scotland, and brought up in County Antrim. Her first collection The Island was published by Story Line Press, and was shortlisted for the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize at the University of Melbourne, Australia. In 2001 she was Writer-in-Residence for Co. Kerry, and from 2006-7 she was Poetry Editor for Southword. She has worked as a graphic designer, and a teacher in varied locations including Belfast, and Spike Island and Cork Prisons. At present she teaches Creative Writing in County Cork.