The Wrong Miracle: (Salt Modern Poets)

Everything is a miracle. It is a miracle one does not dissolve in one’s bath like a lump of sugar. (Picasso) Philosophical, inquisitive, humorous narratives show Gallagher’s talent for letting ideas be widely connotative – sharp and daring, quirky and knowing – these poems of wide-ranging themes and approaches are chock full of the unexpected, delivered in lively rhythms and tempo with an energy and way of seeing the world that is compelling. Be the poems about an addiction to soap watching or searching for the `real’ flamenco to oddly philosophical glimpses into angels and bath time or Picasso and a sexual snap – these well-rounded poems are full of spark, moving one into seeing the grand significance in the mundane. Darker angled poems zone in on death, on loneliness, on a graveyard visit, on war. These poems use original images to bring timely messages that are real and tangible. A series of love poems incite gorgeous, off-centre views on love. Playfulness and tongue-in-cheek mix with sensuality and randomness, idioms catapult into surprises, there are implications and engaging twists and urgency. From the cosmic to the domestic, from childhood flashback to adult matter-of-factness, from the simply chilling to the witty and authentic – cleverness and a surreal intensity entertain and enlighten, making Wrong Miracle an achievement of the amusing and the deep. Gallagher is a poet of immense resource with a refreshingly original voice that will move one to exclaim – `Ah, what a great thing for poems to do!’

Table of Contents:
Decorum A Bruising on the Bone Woman in a Red-Head A Lady in the Bath with Angels All This Wonderment Here’s Me in an Anonymous Society Spring Breakfast Cereals, Picasso and a Sexual Snap A Poem that Thinks It Has Joined a Circus Finding the Right Silences Compartmentalise Look What the Cat Dragged In Sunglasses Prelude to Getting One’s Act Together Rooster on a Dangerous Bend (Or There Is No Satisfaction in Losing One’s Hat) Spring the Life Fandango The Loneliness of Not Being Equivalent to the Other Soaps The Sun Splits Second Thoughts on Sunday Graveyard Visit (1) Deposits in the Heart Region Small Acts Waking a Grandmother My Father Shows Me How to Sharpen a Bush-Trimmer A Guide to Enjoying a Wet August Letter From a Far-Flung Place Bogeyman at Play A Bout of the Sinister in the Everyday The Woman with All Her Curtains Drawn Mostly, My Dogs Excel the Gods `Please Be Yous Good Till I Get Back!’ Sunday with Ritual Episode iii: The Day the Shelling Started Sun Over a Tree Line City Roof Top The Agony in the Garden The Soldier Sways on a Swing: Episode XV 14 Seconds Feet and Mouth and Shoes Irreversible Against the Odds, We Talk Ourselves into Things Shuffling Feet in the Early Hours In the Kitchen with Chestnuts and Tomatoes Crazy Love Falling Out of Love (or Remaining Untrained in Kite Flying) Sing Me a Sort of Lily-the-Pink Song Signs Exposition of the Contents of a Heart Small Consolation Sometimes When You are Bent Over Chopping leeks ... The Wrong Miracle Love Exists in the Back-Boiler Room Allow Me Search Me (All Else Failing) In the Dark, Listening to Rain Cosmic Noise A Breeze in My Hair

About the Author :
Liz Gallagher was born and brought up in Donegal, Ireland. She has been living in Gran Canary Island for the past 14 years. She has an Education degree where she specialised in Irish language. She also has a Computer Science degree. She is at present doing research into online debating for her PhD. She began writing about 5 years ago and has won a variety of awards in both Ireland and the US: Best New Poet 2007 (Meridian Press, Virginia University) First Prize in The Listowel Writers’ Single Poem Competition 2009 and she was selected by Poetry Ireland for their 2009 Introductions Series in recognition of her status as an emerging poet.