ARTS Ballina poet publishes first collection

Ballina poet publishes first collection


The first collection from Ballina-based poet Michelle O’Sullivan, ‘The Blue End of Stars’ will be launched in Ballina Arts Centre on July 17 at 7pm. Westport poet Séan Lysaght will be guest speaker on the evening.
Born in Chicago, O’Sullivan grew up in Co Sligo. She has a BA and MA from the University of Hertfordshire and worked in England as a primary teacher. After living in Greece and the US, she now lives in Ballina, where she works as a home tutor.
Many of the poems in this first collection are set in the early light of morning, the half-light of evening or the firelight of a damp day. Many occur by water’s edge – quayside, shore or riverbank – and abound in memorable images: The storm unfolding its rope of cloud, a speaker catching ‘the minnow of your reflection’.
By conjuring seasons and landscape, the expanses of the West of Ireland in particular,  O’Sullivan charts a range of emotional states.
In a world of clamour her poems are triumphs of contemplation. This shy, tentative, sparsely populated art explores and fixes insights into a private life.
To launch her new collection Michelle O’Sullivan will read in the Ballina Arts Centre (7.00pm, July 17th) and take part in the ‘Gallery Goes…’ series which visits Hodges Figgis in Dublin on July 25 and Kilkenny Arts Week on August 14.

‘The Blue End of Stars’ by Michelle O’Sullivan (€11.95, paperback; €18.50, hardback) is published by Gallery Press (www.gallerypress.com).