Flight and Earlier Poems

In Flight and Earlier Poems, the cultural creation and romantic myths surrounding such themes as home, family and landscape are set against the harsh realities of Ireland s history. They are also burdened by the specific gravity of individual lives. Vona Groarke s treatment of Ireland s past and present, the barrenness of certain parts of the country, and the flight from the emptiness of obscure counties, is subtle and evocative: a contentious space of philosophical as well as lyrical resonance. If the once desolate lands and deserted villages of the Irish countryside have sometimes surrendered to a rural idyll, the envy of post-industrial Europe, Groarke examines those places which have not been visited by such a retreat into the pastoral, or else have been transformed in the process."