The Full Indian Rope Trick

by Colette Bryce

Colette Bryce's "The Heel of Bernadette" was one of the most highly praised new collections of recent years, winning both the Aldeburgh Prize for best first collection, and the Strong Award for best new Irish poet. Her second, "The Full Indian Rope Trick" - the title poem already the winner of the 2003 National Poetry Competition - sees a leap forward in confidence and range, with Bryce's dark lyric and darker wit finding many different voices. Whatever subject the poet takes - an Ulster childhood and the child's growing awareness of her divided community, the surreal life of the natural world, or the more disturbing shadows thrown by our love and desire - it is always addressed with both a compelling emotional candor and an astonishingly musical intelligence. Pillar Talk That magician/who stationed himself on a pillar/over Manhattan/for thirty-five hours/knows nothing whatever/of loneliness/or how it is/for people like us/who have no soft acre/of cardboard boxes/not even the eggshell/flashbulbs of the press/or the well-meant antics/of neighbors with a mattress/to temper the thought/of the hard, hard earth,/to break the fall./Nothing at all.

Genres: Poetry

48 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Keshia✨]

Not going to give this a star rating because I did not enjoy it whatsoever. I think possibly it just wasn’t my cup of tea or what I expected so don’t want to discourage people who enjoy deep poetry from reading.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colette Bryce is one of my poetry heroes.

One of her earlier collections, well-crafted and with a title poem that aptly demonstrates how she uses the seeming simplicity of her work to great emotional effect and blah blah blah - Colette Bryce is one of my poetry heroes.

[Simona Avram · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has managed to make me go back to it many a times in the 3 years since I opened it for the first time.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite liked it. My favourite poems were. Blind Man's Buff, The Pines and The Dark. May reread at some point to see if I get more out of it the second time around.