Nightsongs for Gaia

'James Byrne's poetry has always been lyrically complex, with a voice that is singular and instantly striking. What particularly impresses the reader of his Nightsongs for Gaia: New and Selected Poems is its capaciousness. This book takes us on a journey from his youth, via places of recent conflict such as Myanmar and Libya in a way that few contemporary writers across the globe can match. He makes most poets today look like they're jogging in a bathtub.' ANTONY ROWLAND Nightsongs for Gaia: New and Selected Poems spans over twenty years of James Byrne's poetic practice. Accomplished in both formal and innovative modes, Byrne's poetry is visionary, attentive and curious, encapsulating a global sensibility. Selecting from seven full collections and various pamphlets, Nightsongs brings together works unavailable in England until now. Here we encounter a poetics that works with communities to further consider a sense of self and otherness and is unique in its musicality. This volume celebrates the work of one of the most gifted poets of his generation. 'Nightsongs for Gaia presents alchemical fissures of a heart reduced to gold with no other substance to turn (in)to. A fiery presence of augury, of premonition, burns from the outset with a wary flame. Byrne has seen many places, been many things, and undergone visceral self-haunting in many guises. To say the Nightsongs are oracular is to understate the poet's own sense of knowingness. Here, exquisite beauty prevails.' KIRSTEN NORRIE