How We Arrive in Winter

"''…the brain stores memories like glass shards in a palm,'' so says the speaker in ‘The First Forgetting’ from Liz Quirke’s stunning and poignant, How We Arrive In Winter. Quirke’s second collection is as sharp, intense and piercing as these slivers of glass, as well as being as true, clear and translucent—letting all the light pass through. It is an unflinching exploration and excavation of love, loss, parenthood and survival that I couldn’t put down. A profound, mature and moving collection from a poet of great integrity and power, How We Arrive In Winter is a career-defining achievement." — Victoria Kennefick, author of Eat or We Both Starve

"Form ruptures. Mirroring the self in this volume, the poems are made and unmade; a seam of kintzugi gleams, then unravels, speaking to the detritus of love through grief. The collection slip-slides from time-shifting paeons to absence, to shocks of pain, of beauty. From loss into love, into loss again, the poems are in communion with each other. Circular, concentric, they expand and contract, not towards resolution—but, like with all great poetry, to a deeper questioning. Here is the self, gutted like a fish, but with always something oblique, hidden, so that alongside unflinching truth lies mystery too. Breath-taking." — Ruth McKee, editor of Books Ireland

"At the heart of this collection is a beautiful, attentive monument to a beloved father, tradesman and teacher, an ambitious and patient song of remembrance." — Mike McCormack, author of Solar Bones

"A beautiful meditation on love and loss, the overwhelming brutality of grief and the mystery in the everyday-ordinary. Quirke demonstrates great control against raw emotion, and sharp attention to time at an alternate pace. How we Arrive In Winter is filled with beautiful and heartbreaking poems on the human condition, fragility and resilience." — Elaine Feeney, author of Rise and As You Were