Playing the Octopus In These Days of Prohibition These pairings search for definition

These pairings search for definition and meaning whilst acknowledging the beauty and strength in never actually being able to capture either

Carole Satyamurti

Their latest collaboration tells the more sombre story – in six-line rhyming stanzas – of a young lad from a Yorkshire pit village who finds himself caught up in the horrors of the First World War

Neruda is renowned for poetry that casts away despair and celebrates living

Published by Bloodaxe Books on 23

Playing the Octopus In These Days of Prohibition These pairings search for definitionHe avoids the pipes. He has his reasons. He has heard the story Of the octopus who was locked into a room For a week to practice. When they let him out the pipes had learned To play the octopus. The thing about musicians is They respond to glory. In Playing the Octopus, her eighth collection of poems, Mary OMalleys sensitivity to the spirit of Irelands west coast is as attuned as ever. In a world both earthen and dreamlike, bodily and mythical, a