The Courtesy of Constructing Bridges by Daragh Bradish

In Daragh Bradish’s collection, The Courtesy of Constructing Bridges, the familiar world is continually reconfigured into something astonishing. Whether he is watching water plunge from a height, the ghost-light of childhood, the fragile courage of cliffs, or recalling the tremor of young imaginings, he reveals the hidden pulse beneath the everyday. His poems move with a craftsman’s precision and a contemplative mind’s depth yet never settle for the obvious route. Instead, they approach experience from unexpected angles — tender, alert, and subtly transformative.

These are poems of perception, where the smallest gesture can open a revelation. With clarity, restraint, and a rare instinct for metaphor, he invites us to pause, to look again, and to feel the world restored to its original strangeness and beauty. With a quietly daring imagination, this is the work of a poet who understands both the weight and the lightness of being alive — and who offers to us that understanding with consummate grace.

– Ron Carey