A Change in the Air

"The poems are plain-spoken and restrained: they resist easy consolation. Their austerity serves to intensify the unmediated emotion they almost don't want to capture... a poem might be born of personal loss, but, once completed and published, it has entered a different timespan, and becomes the forge where other minds are shaped and brightened." -- Carol Rumens, The Guardian, on When the Tree Falls

'Her observation of nature is...precise, her poems are...honed to the bone. Clarke knows exactly how much to withhold so that the understated artful phrases echo eloquently across the white space of the unsaid.' - Martina Evans, The Irish Times

'A poet who blends the contemporary with a great sense of the ancient and the rural... There is no sentimentality, no ornamentation; every word is incredibly honed and carries a really deep emotional weight.' - Jessica Traynor, speaking on RTE Radio 1's Arena (Poetry books of 2019)

'The Irish poet Jane Clarke has followed a great debut collection with an even better second book. When the Tree Falls talks about her farming father in his last years. It delivers a clean, hard-earned simplicity and a lovely sense of line.' - Anne Enright, The Irish Times (Books of the Year 2019)

'When the Tree Falls confirms Jane Clarke's position as one of the most rewarding poets in these islands: she knows how to cut a line, how to shape words to the right instrument and then to make that thing sing.' - Tony Curtis, Poetry Wales (Poetry Books of the Year 2019)

'Clarke has clearly paid the closest attention to the lives and worlds around her. Though there is a deep sadness in many of these poems, there is also a lightness and a willingness to let tenderness and humour shine through... Clarke delicately attends to the rhythms and textures of life, weaving themes together in a subtle and carefully-constructed work.' - Julie Morrissy, Poetry Ireland Review, on When the Tree Falls