Book Launch: The Risen Tree by Bernadette Gallagher
FREE
“The Risen Tree” is Bernadette Gallagher's debut poetry collection. It is thought-provoking contemplative poetry that touches upon themes of nature, growth, and human connection. The poems are inspired by and reference psalm verses from the Bible, giving them a devotional style. The language is simple yet evocative giving them an intimate, conversational voice. Gallagher has a strong observant eye for small details of nature, which she uses to reflect on humanity.
Bernadette's collection with be introduced by friend of the Frances Browne Literary Festival, Annemarie Ní Churreáin
Time: Friday 11th October, 6.30pm
Venue: Kee's Hotel, Stranorlar
Bernadette Gallagher is a poet from Donegal and lives inland on a hill in County Cork with a view to the Cork and Kerry mountains.
Reviews for 'The Risen Tree ' [Revival Press, 2024]
'a distinctive and moving collection' - Jane Clarke
‘The tautness of the lines leaves room for the reader to enter each experience, open the words of each psalm in their mind, and hold both their specificness and universality close. It feels as if this book speaks with such wisdom to many of the themes troubling societies today …. The fragility of life is keenly felt, and there’s such loss and longing among these words. The compactness and tidiness of the poems made them all the more vivid. There are many I will return to in time.’ - Alvy Carragher
‘The poems from this sequence are remarkable, a study in emotional presence yet restraint, held by such delicate forms — seemingly simple yet with layers of moral and existential complexity. They inhabit the page like windows into experience, single frames on a film strip. Meditative, woven with care and compassion and honest encounters with the experience of being human. They also feel so formally distinct, almost like a variation on a haiku sequence with more room to breathe.’ - Casey Jarrin
Review of The Risen Tree in Books Ireland Magazine by Orla Fay
https://booksirelandmagazine.com/the-risen-tree-we-write-to-find-out-to-question/
About Bernadette Gallagher
Her work has been published in Crannóg, Agenda, The Stinging Fly, The North, Stony Thursday, The Frogmore Papers, Dreich, Southword 41, New Isles Press, Irish Examiner, Boyne Berries, ROPES, Stanzas, in the US peace journal DoveTales, Cork Words 3, Tabula Rasa, In the Cinnamon Corners, Ó Bhéal Five Words, In Dappled Shade and in various online journals. Her poem Father to Daughter was recently translated into Arabic and published in the Jordanian magazine Thaqafat.
A selection of her work has been recorded by the University College Dublin Poetry Archive and her poem 'Coming Home' has been added to the Words Lightly Spoken podcast. She has been invited to
read her work in Ireland, UK, US, and at the Sahitya Akademi in New Delhi, India. An essay by Bernadette on the poet Dorothea Herbert (1767-1829) is published in Irish Women Poets Rediscovered: Readings in Poetry from 18th - 20th Century edited by Maria Johnston and Conor Linnie; Publisher: Cork University Press, 2021.
She has received awards from the Arts Council of Ireland and Cork County Council.
bernadettegallagher.blogspot.com
About Annemarie Ní Churreáin
Annemarie Ní Churreáin is a poet from the Donegal Gaeltacht, Ireland. Her books include The Poison Glen (The Gallery Press, 2021) and Bloodroot (Doire Press, 2017). She is a recipient of the Arts Council’s Next Generation Artist Award and a co-recipient of The Markievicz Award. In 2023 Ní Churreáin is Writer in Residence at the Druskininkai Poetic Falls Festival, Lithuania. She is the incoming Poetry Editor of The Stinging Fly. Visit www.studiotwentyfive.com.
