Vincent Woods

Lives and Miracles Vincent Woods

Lives and Miracles is a poetry collection that derives much of its strength from the simplicity of its form. Vincent Woods combines a sideways glance at the material facts of economic life (a rare matter in Irish poetry) with wit. The poems are sardonic and observant, and in the edginess lies the uncanny discovery within a single phrase of the ordinary and the fabulous. The seemingly simple narrative is expertly structured and carefully weighed, and it is the certainty of touch in these poems which makes them communicative and resonant. They discover a kind of mad delight in the voices they rehearse. The collection is accompanied by thirty-five drawings inspired by the poems and the landscapes of County Leitrim.