The Conversation

by Judith Barrington

“This is a brilliant technical achievement; it reminds us all that great poetry is both fine thinking and achieved style. The narrator describes and teaches, telling us that death – and death in life – is ‘too late now for that conversation we never had’ – We can’t leave ‘The Conversation’ without becoming implicated in its anxieties. Technically, this is a mindful, thoughtful, calculated and superbly pre-meditated work. I have no hesitation – dare I say it, no anxiety? – in advocating it as my winning poem for the Gregory O’Donoghue Prize.”

Thomas McCarthy
Writing of the title poem, which he selected as winner of the
Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition

78 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Jachin Heckman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"That tree held its head high even while rot was eating its heart, even while with his harness and ropes, digging his climbing spurs into the old trunk. I like to think he spoke kindly before he took down the top third of the massive body."

Sitting with death is full of many things, and this book approaches it with the tenderness and honesty that it should be approached with. A triumph of grief.