Ethna McKiernan’s Sky Thick With Fireflies is laced and bound by memory. These poems hold the past to light and insist upon remembrance. Included are moving elegies for her father, for a friend’s son, for the dead of 9/11, for her own child lost to adoption, and for the homeless population with whom she works. Here also are poems of longing and romance and dry wit, plus the imaginative persona poems in the voices of Rumpelstiltskin, Narcissus and Mrs Magi.
“McKiernan is a poet’s poet, assuming the poet believes emotion is the beating heart of literature.”
The Corresponder
“She stands out among the ranks of poets for her ability to match language to subject, sound to sense.”
The Bloomsbury Review
Ethna McKiernan’s first book, Caravan (Dedalus Press, 1989) was a Minnesota Book Award Nominee. Her second, The One Who Swears You Can’t Start Over, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2002. She ran Irish Books and Media for over two decades and has worked for the past four years for a non-profit organisation serving the Minneapolis homeless.
“McKiernan is a poet’s poet, assuming the poet believes emotion is the beating heart of literature.”
The Corresponder
“She stands out among the ranks of poets for her ability to match language to subject, sound to sense.”
The Bloomsbury Review
Ethna McKiernan’s first book, Caravan (Dedalus Press, 1989) was a Minnesota Book Award Nominee. Her second, The One Who Swears You Can’t Start Over, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2002. She ran Irish Books and Media for over two decades and has worked for the past four years for a non-profit organisation serving the Minneapolis homeless.