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[Parallax] (By: Sinead Morrissey) [published: October, 2013]
Capturing David Niven on a magical marble escalator to heaven in 1946, recording L. S. Lowry’s studio after his death, and peering into the illicit worlds of the Victorian Mutoscope, these poems document what is caught, and what is lost, when houses and cityscapes, servants and saboteurs are arrested in time by photography. Assured and unsettling, Sinéad Morrissey’s poems explore the paradoxes in what is seen, read, and misread in the surfaces of the presented world.
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First published June 28, 2013
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About the author
Sinéad Morrissey
17 books18 followersRaised in Belfast, she was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where she took BA and PhD degrees, and won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 1990. She has published four collections of poetry: There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996), Between Here and There (2001), The State of the Prisons (2005), and Through the Square Window (2009), the second, third and fourth of which were shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. After periods living in Japan and New Zealand she now lives in Belfast, where she has been writer-in-residence at Queen's University, Belfast and currently lectures.
Her collection, The State of the Prisons, was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award in 2006. In November 2007, she received a Lannan Foundation Fellowship for "distinctive literary merit and for demonstrating potential for continued outstanding work". Her poem "Through the Square Window" won first prize in the 2007 British National Poetry Competition. Her collection, Through the Square Window, won the Poetry Now Award for 2010.
Her collection, The State of the Prisons, was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award in 2006. In November 2007, she received a Lannan Foundation Fellowship for "distinctive literary merit and for demonstrating potential for continued outstanding work". Her poem "Through the Square Window" won first prize in the 2007 British National Poetry Competition. Her collection, Through the Square Window, won the Poetry Now Award for 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 3, 2019
You never finish reading a book of poetry: different times, different occasions bring different enjoyments, insights, resonances. From cover to cover not an ideal way to do it. So I have tried to savour these, no more than a couple at a time. Some make me ache with a yearning to repeat experiences so I can savour them as fully, or use my senses more effectively. Yet I am grateful that someone else can do it for me, alert me to the need to do better next time.
And the book itself remains, of course, within reach.
2019 - I was right about re-reaching for, even if it took me longer - too many other books demanding - and the impact, as anticipated, different.
And the book itself remains, of course, within reach.
2019 - I was right about re-reaching for, even if it took me longer - too many other books demanding - and the impact, as anticipated, different.
July 13, 2023
Exploring parallax ("the apparent displacement or the difference in apparent direction of an object as seen from two different points not on a straight line with the object”) is inherently a cool concept for a poetry collection, but Morrissey’s poems were really imaginative and smart. Some of them are set in random historical dates, places or scenes yet they ring clear – always accessible and never forced.
August 28, 2013
A highly engrossing & vigorous collection from Northern Ireland's green side; Belfast's 1st Poet Laureate displays more than the narrow sectarian-ism of so many Irish artists, with a range & depth as deep as Lough Neagh, showing a good grasp of form,subject & rhythm. I enjoyed her flights of personal fancy, whether imagining Dorothy Wordsworth's quotidian thoughts ('1801') or a rapt new mother's love for her child ('Daughter'). Sinead Morrissey even mentions my life-long stamping-ground of Croydon...hardly mentioned in the dusty annals of poetry!...(though that old stalwart Betjeman gives a nod to Addiscombe (where I sit writing this!)) in 'Display'. And a whole piece,'Fur', is dedicated to one of my all-time favourite paintings before which I have passed,contemplatively,minutes at a time in London's National Gallery (a great place,once upon a time, to pick-up nubile American Art majors!), 'The Ambassadors' by Hans Holbein...which I use as my desk-top background!! She even makes a bow to Raymond Chandler...another personal favourite in 'The High Window';
..."a PI who never simply talks but utters/ wisecracks like a jeweller stringing pearls;".
I feel an affinity (even a synchronicity?) with Morrissey's vision of the mundane & banal becoming the stuff & substance of great poetry.
"Too obvious a touch/ to set the white skull straight....Better/ to paint it as something other:"
-- from 'Fur'.
To show things as something other seems a good definition of at least one of the requirements of memorable poetry; I will remember some of Sinead Morrissey's latest view of her private world as easily as I remember an Art major from Omaha,Nebraska:
"as golden days must ripen the greenest corn,
harvested by my silver-tongued scholarship
satisfied by success, now sated,
with queasy feasting on full-flavoured siloes
of sun-blest simplicity".
Did I really write that? Inspired by Holbein,Caravaggio & Constable? My field of dreams?
Enjoy Sinead Morrissey's field of dreams...poetry of high quality indeed!
..."a PI who never simply talks but utters/ wisecracks like a jeweller stringing pearls;".
I feel an affinity (even a synchronicity?) with Morrissey's vision of the mundane & banal becoming the stuff & substance of great poetry.
"Too obvious a touch/ to set the white skull straight....Better/ to paint it as something other:"
-- from 'Fur'.
To show things as something other seems a good definition of at least one of the requirements of memorable poetry; I will remember some of Sinead Morrissey's latest view of her private world as easily as I remember an Art major from Omaha,Nebraska:
"as golden days must ripen the greenest corn,
harvested by my silver-tongued scholarship
satisfied by success, now sated,
with queasy feasting on full-flavoured siloes
of sun-blest simplicity".
Did I really write that? Inspired by Holbein,Caravaggio & Constable? My field of dreams?
Enjoy Sinead Morrissey's field of dreams...poetry of high quality indeed!
May 31, 2015
Sinead Morrisey's actual voice is perfect for these poems, and her reading them was my first exposure to her poetry, and while some poems translate well into internal reading, these work really well read aloud.
Her ability to create images with words is awe inspiring
Her ability to create images with words is awe inspiring
March 2, 2014
So good I want to read everything else she has written.
May 16, 2014
I enjoy most the unique and varied perspectives presented in these poems, domestic, other-worldly, fantastical, intriguing, rewarding.
November 12, 2021
Read this for college and I will be copy+paste”ing” this review into all of her collections, as I have currently read everything from the 1st collection - “there was fire in Vancouver” - to the 6th and most recent - “on balance”.
I think Sinéad Morrissey’s poetry is among the best that I have ever read or had the pleasure to study. However, she isn’t a favourite of mine. I think that, personally, I like poetry that I can identify myself with/ poems that really resonate with me. It doesn’t mean that I won’t appreciate or bow down to the many beautiful poems she wrote about mythology/legends/travelling… Her poems about japan are absolutely incredible.
Nevertheless, I do appreciate autobiographical poetry more. I think I particularly tend to enjoy poetry from the 20th back more. So, it’s not surprising for me that I end up enjoying Eavan Boland’s poetry more, for example. There’s just something missing in most contemporary poetry for me. Some feeling that I get from “older” poetry that I don’t from poetry written post-90’s/ early 00’s.
I think Sinéad Morrissey’s poetry is among the best that I have ever read or had the pleasure to study. However, she isn’t a favourite of mine. I think that, personally, I like poetry that I can identify myself with/ poems that really resonate with me. It doesn’t mean that I won’t appreciate or bow down to the many beautiful poems she wrote about mythology/legends/travelling… Her poems about japan are absolutely incredible.
Nevertheless, I do appreciate autobiographical poetry more. I think I particularly tend to enjoy poetry from the 20th back more. So, it’s not surprising for me that I end up enjoying Eavan Boland’s poetry more, for example. There’s just something missing in most contemporary poetry for me. Some feeling that I get from “older” poetry that I don’t from poetry written post-90’s/ early 00’s.
Read
July 6, 2022This was one that I'll admit to picking up for £2 because I was sick of seeing the name and not having read her. The good news is -she's good! I really liked this collection though it fades fast which we'll call not outstaying one's welcome. Splendid ear for phrase & cadential sense. Poet-has-a-baby type collection toward the end. But some strong, self-contained storytelling in here (special mentions to Shadows and A Day's Blindness). Won the TS Eliot too so congrats SM maybe I'll find more
December 1, 2024
I often read poetry collections backwards, so the first words I read in Sinéad Morrissey’s Parallax were these:
This is going to be fun, I thought. It was, but not in the way I imagined.
I should have started at the beginning, where the first poem in the collection serves as a useful reminder that the ‘I’ in poetry is not necessarily the ‘I’ of the poet.
I immediately recognised the voice of Dorothy Wordsworth, going about her menial daily chores while her brother sits at his desk writing immortal poetry.
If I’d started at the very back and read the ‘Notes’ I would have realised that Sinéad cites her source of inspiration: The Grasmere Journal 1800-1803, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) and I wouldn’t have felt so pleased with myself for having solved the ‘puzzle.’
There are other puzzles like this in the collection, though. Some have notes, some don’t. There is even a poem called ‘Puzzle’, which has a note but no solution: ‘inspired by Boris A. Kordemsky’s The Moscow Puzzles: 359 Mathematical Recreations (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
The answer (spoiler alert!) is 136.
I only know the answer because Sinéad revealed it at a reading. Something else she revealed is that the ‘I’ in ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ is autobiographical. This saved me some brain work because I haven’t seen the film or, at least, I couldn’t remember anything about it until she described it at the reading. I tried to read this poem on my own and I struggled to work out the rhythm. The lines are very long and run into each other across the page and across the breaks in the stanzas.
It reminded me of a song lyric where the lines don’t seem to work on the page but then you hear the artist sing them and they’re transformed into something perfect and beautiful. Sinéad reads the poem with a light, pulsating rhythm I hadn’t anticipated. Her reading also brings out the humour, which was there all along, but, like a lot of dry humour, can almost vanish on the page, especially when it’s a matter of life and death.
I’m not going to comment on all the poems. I like ‘The Party Bazaar’ where the ‘we’ is almost certainly autobiographical, depicting a scene in the life of the daughter of card-carrying communists. I loved ‘The High Window’. There’s no note on this but the clues are in the poem itself and, anyway, I’ve read everything by Raymond Chandler twice so that’s fine.
I may have missed the point of some of the poems where I haven’t read the book or seen the film, or heard the explanation in a reading. That’s not to say I can’t enjoy them. These are all well-crafted, polished pieces that repay close attention. The collection was published in 2013 and won the T.S. Eliot Prize for that year. It’s win was well-deserved.
I don’t have girlfriends but I do have sex
With a different woman about three times a month.
This is going to be fun, I thought. It was, but not in the way I imagined.
I should have started at the beginning, where the first poem in the collection serves as a useful reminder that the ‘I’ in poetry is not necessarily the ‘I’ of the poet.
A beautiful cloudless morning. My toothache better.
William at work on The Pedlar.
I immediately recognised the voice of Dorothy Wordsworth, going about her menial daily chores while her brother sits at his desk writing immortal poetry.
If I’d started at the very back and read the ‘Notes’ I would have realised that Sinéad cites her source of inspiration: The Grasmere Journal 1800-1803, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) and I wouldn’t have felt so pleased with myself for having solved the ‘puzzle.’
There are other puzzles like this in the collection, though. Some have notes, some don’t. There is even a poem called ‘Puzzle’, which has a note but no solution: ‘inspired by Boris A. Kordemsky’s The Moscow Puzzles: 359 Mathematical Recreations (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972).
The answer (spoiler alert!) is 136.
I only know the answer because Sinéad revealed it at a reading. Something else she revealed is that the ‘I’ in ‘A Matter of Life and Death’ is autobiographical. This saved me some brain work because I haven’t seen the film or, at least, I couldn’t remember anything about it until she described it at the reading. I tried to read this poem on my own and I struggled to work out the rhythm. The lines are very long and run into each other across the page and across the breaks in the stanzas.
It reminded me of a song lyric where the lines don’t seem to work on the page but then you hear the artist sing them and they’re transformed into something perfect and beautiful. Sinéad reads the poem with a light, pulsating rhythm I hadn’t anticipated. Her reading also brings out the humour, which was there all along, but, like a lot of dry humour, can almost vanish on the page, especially when it’s a matter of life and death.
I’m not going to comment on all the poems. I like ‘The Party Bazaar’ where the ‘we’ is almost certainly autobiographical, depicting a scene in the life of the daughter of card-carrying communists. I loved ‘The High Window’. There’s no note on this but the clues are in the poem itself and, anyway, I’ve read everything by Raymond Chandler twice so that’s fine.
I may have missed the point of some of the poems where I haven’t read the book or seen the film, or heard the explanation in a reading. That’s not to say I can’t enjoy them. These are all well-crafted, polished pieces that repay close attention. The collection was published in 2013 and won the T.S. Eliot Prize for that year. It’s win was well-deserved.
June 12, 2025
Sinéad Morrissey has a poetic voice that doesn't just smack but rather PUNCHES of intellect and eclectic sageness. Her verse feels beyond me as her cultural touchpoints just outstrip my own. Reading this anthology felt like a sorting hat quiz for George Steiner's concept of difficulty where I ticked at least 2 boxes each time. Despite personally not having a touch for maternal literature, I found the way that Morrissey reimagines life and death and familial bonds to be striking. I think for me to fully glean the sense of what she's aiming for I need to read around the cultural context or sit down and fully try and pick apart this anthology. However, in terms of a read over, it was a really beautiful collection. It didn't necessarily speak to me or feel as if it would stick in my mind however due to my struggling to access or discern the verse.
3/5 because I recognise there's something extraordinary here but it just didn't resonate emotionally
3/5 because I recognise there's something extraordinary here but it just didn't resonate emotionally
May 6, 2025
Sinéad Morrissey is a powerhouse - this isn’t my first time reading her work, but I’d never cracked open Parallax until now. First off, there’s a fascinating theme going on here (look up the definition of Parallax, then think old, black and white photos). I’ve been doing my fair share of researching while flipping through this book, which has only added to the experience.
More importantly, though, is her ability to sift through words and find the sharpest or slickest ones, whichever she’s fancying at the moment. She’s always a treat to read, though she hasn’t put a collection out since 2017. Guess it’s time to cycle through her others.
More importantly, though, is her ability to sift through words and find the sharpest or slickest ones, whichever she’s fancying at the moment. She’s always a treat to read, though she hasn’t put a collection out since 2017. Guess it’s time to cycle through her others.
August 12, 2020
12/31
I picked up this collection when I was in Belfast in April of 2019. And I am so glad I did. I am most enamoured with the first poem that looks at Dorothy Wordsworth (we’ll call her Dotty)--and I am not alone. Apparently it was part of the Poems Underground campaign in 2018.
#SealeyChallenge #SinéadMorrissey
From “1801”
“I boiled up pears with cloves.
Such visited evenings are sharp with love
I almost said dear, look. Either moonlight on Grasmere —like herrings!—
or the new moon holding the old moon in its arms.”
I picked up this collection when I was in Belfast in April of 2019. And I am so glad I did. I am most enamoured with the first poem that looks at Dorothy Wordsworth (we’ll call her Dotty)--and I am not alone. Apparently it was part of the Poems Underground campaign in 2018.
#SealeyChallenge #SinéadMorrissey
From “1801”
“I boiled up pears with cloves.
Such visited evenings are sharp with love
I almost said dear, look. Either moonlight on Grasmere —like herrings!—
or the new moon holding the old moon in its arms.”
Read
May 13, 2025according to the epigraph, “parallax” is an apparent displacement of an object caused by the viewer changing position. these poems seem to be written from a distance—spatial or temporal or emotional, or all of those, or something else i’ve missed. but the subtle way she plays with perspective is enrapturing and innovative. i also liked how she can make any mundane thing feel poetic. the titles of the poems sometimes felt too on-the-nose for my taste but overall i enjoyed reading these.
i guess i’ve been reading this on and off for about six months? wow.
i guess i’ve been reading this on and off for about six months? wow.
January 16, 2021
Really enjoyed it - was funny, poignant, and some interesting uses of the literal written out form of a poem.
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/balti...
https://petemcgovern.blogspot.com/201...
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/balti...
https://petemcgovern.blogspot.com/201...
November 6, 2017
A beautiful, beautiful collection with evocations of Belfast's past, the Soviet Union, travels, photography, family, getting older.
November 25, 2019
So disappointing..
June 4, 2020
Exquisite wording, unusual perspectives, erudite reference. A total delight. I wish I could memorise so many of the poems and carry them around in my head forever.
September 23, 2021
Smart, but I may have been looking for something in particular, something more political and more overtly moving, like "The Doctors" (182-3).
May 18, 2015
I bought this book at a reading by Morrisey while she was on a three-week book tour in the U.S. She’s the Poet Laureate of Belfast. Her lovely brogue and colorful back stories added greatly to my enjoyment. For example, her eight-year-old son was tracking where she was appearing each day. When she told him, “Kansas City,” he asked, “Do they have color there?”
Morrissey’s poems are meaty, narrative poems, many about U.K. history that was new to me, as well as poems reflecting her travels. In addition to Parallax, this volume includes selected poems from three earlier books. I especially enjoyed her poems about her family. You can find her only (for now) villanelle, “Genetics,” online. In “An Anatomy of Smell,” she writes, “Hallways of childhood families and friends had smells, family smells/that…slipped giveaways…of who made who, of what was left to tell/made suddenly clear in every detail as if recently rained on.”
While I’m a fan of short poetry, her vivid storytelling abilities kept me interested through eleven pages of “The State of the Prisons: A History of John Howard, Prison Reformer, 1726-1790.”
Morrissey’s poems are meaty, narrative poems, many about U.K. history that was new to me, as well as poems reflecting her travels. In addition to Parallax, this volume includes selected poems from three earlier books. I especially enjoyed her poems about her family. You can find her only (for now) villanelle, “Genetics,” online. In “An Anatomy of Smell,” she writes, “Hallways of childhood families and friends had smells, family smells/that…slipped giveaways…of who made who, of what was left to tell/made suddenly clear in every detail as if recently rained on.”
While I’m a fan of short poetry, her vivid storytelling abilities kept me interested through eleven pages of “The State of the Prisons: A History of John Howard, Prison Reformer, 1726-1790.”
January 22, 2014
Some interesting ekphrastic pieces in here — I love the mental stretch accompanying poems that reframe your understanding of what a poem can be. Morrissey writes them mischievously, thoughtfully, skillfully.
October 3, 2014
I enjoyed 'this' year's TS Eliot prizewinner and feel it would repay repeated reading. I enjoyed the rhythms and the themes, but it did not grab me by the heart in the way some poetry does.
February 21, 2015
pretty good
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews