For day 14 of our poetic gift guide, we're revisiting this astonishing debut Tongues of Fire by Seán Hewitt.
By turns searing and meditative, these are lyrics concerned with the matter of the world, its physicality, but also attuned to the proximity of each moment, each thing, to the spiritual. Here, there is sex, grief, and loss, but also a committed dedication to life, hope and renewal. There are prayers, hymns, vespers, incantations, and longer poems which attempt to propel themselves towards the transcendent.
Paying close attention to altered states and the consolations and strangeness of the natural world, this is the first book from a major poet.
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