Self-Portrait in the Dark

Description

The dark attunes our eyes to detail the light can sometimes conceal; similarly, Colette Bryce's new poems are 'slant tellings' that reveal strange and true reflections. Using a wide range of imaginative strategies, Bryce examines the ways in which time is held, space enclosed - and a life framed and given meaning: a face in a broken mirror, a spider trapped under a glass, or a stolen kiss in a car-wash. Bryce's two previous prize-winning collections were widely admired for their marvellously seductive music and their speed of thought; Self-Portrait in the Dark widens and deepens the poet's scope, and is her most emotionally compelling collection to date. Praise for The Full Indian Rope Trick '[Bryce's] poems, sensitive as the needle that registers some distant earth tremor, are delicately poised ...Bryce's vision is questing, disquieting, dark ...as she seeks out the truths of life and love that transform the human heart. This is a confident, complex, subversive collection that shows us the magic by which one becomes a mature poet' The Times

Colette Bryce was born in Derry in 1970, and has lived in England, Spain and Scotland. Her first collection, The Heel of Bernadette (2000), won the Aldeburgh Prize for best first collection and the inaugural Eithne Strong award in Ireland. She was also awarded first prize in the 2003 National Poetry Competition.