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A Change in the Air
Jane Clarke’s third collection is far-reaching and yet precisely rooted in time and place. In luminous language her poems explore how people, landscape and culture shape us. Voices of the past and present reverberate with courage and resilience in the face of poverty, prejudice, war and exile and the everyday losses of living. Across six sequences these intimate poems of unembellished imagery accrue power and resonance in what is essentially a book of love poems to our beautiful, fragile world. A Change in the Air follows Jane Clarke's widely praised previous collections The River (2015) and When the Tree Falls (2019). A Change in the Air was longlisted for The Laurel Prize 2023 and shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection 2023. It is shortlisted the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023.
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
Published May 25, 2023
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47 people want to read
About the author
Jane Clarke
4 books8 followersIrish poet Jane Clarke grew up on a farm in Co. Roscommon. Her first collection, The River, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. It was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, given for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry evoking the spirit of a place. In 2016 she won the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and the inaugural Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year Award. She was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland Literary Bursary in 2017.
All the Way Home, Jane’s illustrated booklet of poems in response to a First World War family archive held in the Mary Evans Picture Library, London, was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2019, and was followed by her second book-length collection from Bloodaxe, When the Tree Falls. Jane also edited Origami Doll: New and Collected Shirley McClure (Arlen House, 2019), and guest-edited The North 61: Irish Issue (The Poetry Business, 2019) with Nessa O’Mahony.
Jane was born in 1961 and grew up on a farm in Co. Roscommon.
She lives with her partner in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow, where she combines writing with her work as a creative writing tutor and group facilitator. She holds a BA in English and Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin, and an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales, and has a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
All the Way Home, Jane’s illustrated booklet of poems in response to a First World War family archive held in the Mary Evans Picture Library, London, was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2019, and was followed by her second book-length collection from Bloodaxe, When the Tree Falls. Jane also edited Origami Doll: New and Collected Shirley McClure (Arlen House, 2019), and guest-edited The North 61: Irish Issue (The Poetry Business, 2019) with Nessa O’Mahony.
Jane was born in 1961 and grew up on a farm in Co. Roscommon.
She lives with her partner in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow, where she combines writing with her work as a creative writing tutor and group facilitator. She holds a BA in English and Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin, and an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales, and has a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 4, 2023
Clarke has won a number of awards, and widespread recognition for her poetry. She began writing in her 40's, and is now in her early 60's. She grew up in the center of Ireland, on a farm. Many of her poems describe the quotidian life rural Ireland, as well as the nature of these disappearing spaces. Her poems fill a void that exists in Irish poetry, with few (if any) poets with her rural background describing this disappearing way of life. Her poems are short and tight which I appreciate. Lovers of poems about the natural world will particularly love her poems.
July 6, 2023
"...says I must remember
because something
has slipped into her mind
and every night,
like a stoat among voles,
it cuts down her memories."
This is the polar opposite of 'A Method, A Path' by Rowan Evans. Glorious in its straightforwardness. That's not to say it lacks cleverness. Jane Clarke can turn a phrase so it catches the light. But she doesn't need to rely on anything except the words she needs to paint a picture or tell a story.
She's also able to gently break your heart with a couple of lines. It's like walking across beautiful countryside and stepping on an emotional mine.
There are also poems about history. The sections entitled 'Pit Ponies of Glendasan', which features poems about lead mines and miners in Wicklow, and 'All the Way Home', which is Clarke's response to the Auerbach's family archive of letters and photographs from World War One. I have read a lot of poetry written during and about World War One and these stand up well. Again the clarity of the language helps their impact. 'After we're gone' and 'In the dugout' were my two favourite poems from that section.
She never mentioned her mother's name,
age or homeplace,
only that she died in childbirth,
as if it was as natural as losing a ewe
on a cold winter's night."
This is also a collection full of animals and plants too. Even poems about other subjects are buried in fauna and flora. In that sense it feels like poetry from another time. But that doesn't make it old-fashioned. The language is resolutely modern.
I liked this a lot. Give it a read.
because something
has slipped into her mind
and every night,
like a stoat among voles,
it cuts down her memories."
This is the polar opposite of 'A Method, A Path' by Rowan Evans. Glorious in its straightforwardness. That's not to say it lacks cleverness. Jane Clarke can turn a phrase so it catches the light. But she doesn't need to rely on anything except the words she needs to paint a picture or tell a story.
She's also able to gently break your heart with a couple of lines. It's like walking across beautiful countryside and stepping on an emotional mine.
There are also poems about history. The sections entitled 'Pit Ponies of Glendasan', which features poems about lead mines and miners in Wicklow, and 'All the Way Home', which is Clarke's response to the Auerbach's family archive of letters and photographs from World War One. I have read a lot of poetry written during and about World War One and these stand up well. Again the clarity of the language helps their impact. 'After we're gone' and 'In the dugout' were my two favourite poems from that section.
She never mentioned her mother's name,
age or homeplace,
only that she died in childbirth,
as if it was as natural as losing a ewe
on a cold winter's night."
This is also a collection full of animals and plants too. Even poems about other subjects are buried in fauna and flora. In that sense it feels like poetry from another time. But that doesn't make it old-fashioned. The language is resolutely modern.
I liked this a lot. Give it a read.
August 22, 2023
A beautiful collection. There is true artistry in the way Clarke can turn a phrase, a line, even a single word into the most achingly beautiful thing. I wept, frequently, while reading A Change in the Air, and yet I wouldn't have it any other way. Poetry should make us feel, it should make us think, and it should give us the kind of honesty we can't find in other places. Clarke's work does all of that and more.
Look out especially for "All the horses she's ever loved", "Pit Ponies of Glendasan", "You could say it begins", "Spalls", and the lovely, heartfelt rhyme that wraps the entire collection up, "June".
Look out especially for "All the horses she's ever loved", "Pit Ponies of Glendasan", "You could say it begins", "Spalls", and the lovely, heartfelt rhyme that wraps the entire collection up, "June".
August 22, 2023
This is my first volume of Jane Clarke’s poetry, but it will not be my last. This volume is divided into sections, each more thematically discreet than usual in a book of poems. One section, dealing with WWI was actually previously published as a chapbook, one section of four poems .deals with miners/mining in Ireland. Clarke writes about real life, and with many Irish poets writes about the earth, nature, and history and its impact on the present. She also writes personal poems, a woman’s relationship with her mother, death, marriage — to a woman after 20 years together. Her images and descriptors and delightful, my favorite being a raspberry as a quilted fruit.
November 6, 2023
There are a few unforgettable poems in this collection , the ones about her aging mother such as “ After”, “ Raspberries “ and “ Dressing My Mither for Her Grandson’s Wedding “ There are some other good poems sprinkled throughout , and the rest are forgettable, particularly the nature poems . But the best are such gems that the collection is exceptionally strong .
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October 25, 2024Love the links to the land and the natural world in her poetry. She writes about how landmarks and people become very much a part of who and what we are, what we live for. A very beautiful and striking collection. One I would really like to read again.
April 5, 2024
A really beautiful collection ♥️
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October 9, 2023had the distinct pleasure of listening to her read from this book today. simple sounds, easy rhythms, many voices, and the moving image. not much more one could ask from a collection of beautiful lyrics.
November 19, 2025
Finish: 26.03.2024
Title: A Change in the Air (2023)
Genre: 55 poems (79 pg)
Trivia: #ReadingIrelandMonth24
Rating: C
Good News:
Jane Clarke should be commended that she was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize.
After reading two other shortlisted poets (not finished with their collections yet)
E. Ní Chuilleanáin and Jason Allen-Paisant (winner)
...I feel Ms Jane Clarke is a bit out of her league.
Good News:
Her poems are nostalgic, rural realism but don't have the impressive...allusions that Ms Ní Chuilleanáin can create! Clarke's first poems were about her mother sufferingfrom dementia, nostalgic farm life. They did not bring me into a poetic state...dreaming while you are awake! The only one that can do that is Seamus Heaney. I am not giving up on Ms Clarke.
Bad News:
I notice Ms Clarke tries to write poems alluding to WW I
...trenches, items found on the fields of Ypres and Somme,
...dreaming of when the war is over.
This was not a great selection.
I asked myself how can she write about something she has not experienced?
Bad News:
I entered a section that felt like Ms Clarke was grasping at straws...to pursue even the slightest hope of getting a poem on paper.Two poems were just awful, I'll be honest: You Could Say It BeginsThis was just a long list of places, rivers, streams, mountains...turns in the fields, bridges crossed etc. (85x) ...and it felt like a detailed map for a Wicklow country hike. The poem Crossings had the same vibe.
Good News:
Now the good news..Ms Jane Clarke saves the best for last. Once she started to share her personal life...significant partner, new cottage, wedding, her neighbors etc....her writing blossomed.
The last 12 poems were worth reading the whole book!
Personal
My Score...and remember this MY personal preferences: = 61% enjoyment 21 good - 13 oké - 10 No - 2 "not my cup of tea"
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews