If Only We Could Bottle it by Anne Donnellan

In this generous and exhilarating second collection, Anne Donnellan paints a rural world that exists at the edge of memory—a world of butter churning and sea swimming, of lemon drops and Sunday hackneys, where our grandmothers’ glow was “washed in the barrel / soft rainwater mixed with silken morning dew.”

Opening with poems imbued with the pathos of familial loss, Donnellan seeks to call back a life cast in the loves and losses of memory. But deeper than nostalgia, these poems depict real-life difficulties: the pain of emigration in a time of limited communications, the imperative of survival, the small consolations that made endurance possible. These memories now “spill from bloated pockets,” “overflow like an old candle in a saucer”— examined with unflinching honesty and deep affection.

Yet the idyllic world may never return. The possibility of peace is now thwarted by the dark agencies of war and power, exacerbated by climate change. Still, Donnellan’s “truth jab” comes in the form of hope—a hope that will encourage us to Believe in Almost Anything. Against the backdrop of nature’s moods and colours, and anchored by a profound pride of place, this collection finds consolation and possibility.

Rich in musicality and image, If Only We Could Bottle It rushes forward in gorgeous, active, alliterative language. The dearth of punctuation creates a faultless rhythm as “a slow reverence rises in our hearts”— making this a memorable and deeply moving volume of contemporary Irish poetry.