He celebrates life at the centre and on the perimeter in an impressive range of poems, full of domestic detail, with a dangerous edge and the energetic eye (and ear) of an experienced traveller.  — John Mole, TLS

Tightrope is Aidan Rooney’s second collection, a richly intense exploration of loss and return. In its span of two worlds, the author’s native Ireland and the shores south of Boston where he makes his home, alternating notes of tension and repose evoke love and love-loss. Two sequences anchor the collection and seek to salve heartbreak with restorations of beauty and peace: ‘May Altar’, a moving rumination on his mother’s death and ‘Among the Wrecks’ in which he delves into the history of a nineteenth-century Irish-American family. The book counters upheaval with astounding balancing acts. Its meditations – varied and various, playful, macaronic (and ablaze with already trademark verbal dexterity) reverberate in startling effects.

Published: November 2007