"Angela Patten comes into her own in this collection. There is an assurance and deftness to the verse of Reliquaries that manages perspective just so: the domestic interiors of her childhood and youth are set forth with mingled irony and love, as numinous relics that survive in memory and poetry despite the savage depredations of time. There is a radiant sense in these poems of the experience of ordinary working class Irish people and their culture that is completely authentic and honest."
Anthony Bradley, Editor, Contemporary Irish Poetry
"Poetry asks of us what we yearn for deeply-to be present each moment. Angela Patten's poems speak to that yearning. She is able to weave the accurate feelings that accompany large and small incidents. And she is able to summon the sheer texture of realization and bafflement, that bittersweet dance that even death does not undo. Ireland is the memorable ground beneath her feet but her grace and acuity are all her own."
Baron Wormser
Angela Patten was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. After moving to the United States, she graduated from the University of Vermont and received an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College. Her first collection of poetry, Still Listening, was published by Salmon Poetry in 1999, and her poems were included in The White Page/An Bhileog Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets, The Breath of Parted Lips, and Onion River: Six Vermont Poets. Her poems have also appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Gaelforce (Scotland), Prairie Schooner, The Literary Review and other literary journals, and she has given readings in Ireland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and throughout Vermont and New England. She teaches at the University of Vermont.
Anthony Bradley, Editor, Contemporary Irish Poetry
"Poetry asks of us what we yearn for deeply-to be present each moment. Angela Patten's poems speak to that yearning. She is able to weave the accurate feelings that accompany large and small incidents. And she is able to summon the sheer texture of realization and bafflement, that bittersweet dance that even death does not undo. Ireland is the memorable ground beneath her feet but her grace and acuity are all her own."
Baron Wormser
Angela Patten was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. After moving to the United States, she graduated from the University of Vermont and received an MFA in Poetry from Vermont College. Her first collection of poetry, Still Listening, was published by Salmon Poetry in 1999, and her poems were included in The White Page/An Bhileog Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets, The Breath of Parted Lips, and Onion River: Six Vermont Poets. Her poems have also appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Gaelforce (Scotland), Prairie Schooner, The Literary Review and other literary journals, and she has given readings in Ireland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and throughout Vermont and New England. She teaches at the University of Vermont.