Cirrus@Austlit

'There’s a certain kind of poetry which gets its strength from a combination of an intriguing and original conception for each poem with a forceful expressive power. This latter can come from an intensity of language or from an ability to follow ideas through – and generate new ones – with a rapidity that often leaves the reader behind: what rhetoricians of old called “a copiousness of invention”. Damen O’Brien seems exactly this kind of poet to me, both in his first book, Animal with Human Voices, and this impressive new one, Walking the Boundary. He brings together invention and expressiveness at a high enough level to make him stand out among his contemporaries. A look at the opening section of each book will give me a chance to explain a little further.'  (Introduction)