Pandemonium by Thomas McCarthy Em Strang and always alert to the

and always alert to the surreal comedy of the human condition

Which strikes me

with startling humour and surprising combinations of homely and outlandish

unputdownable first collection

‘Gunn’s work illustrates with unusual clarity some of the debates poetry in English has pursued in [the twentieth] century – form versus improvisation

Pandemonium by Thomas McCarthy Em Strang and always alert to theWritten in the wake of Irelands 2008 economic collapse, Thomas McCarthys Pandemonium moves between lament and protest in search of a meaningful response in language. Many of the poems were written during a period of retreat along Irelands south west coast, a landscape that imbues McCarthys politics with geological intensity. The Atlantic horizon where the sun lies down in the west to die is mirrored inland by corruption and rot, a modern Ireland