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The Secret
The Secret is a book of mystery and magic. Opening on familiar ground -- retelling stories from the Bible. Celtic mythology, small-town rumors, and urban mythologies - it gradually moves beyond its borders to narratives of Central America, drawing on figures such as the Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes, and the Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo. In this unusually innovative first collection, Zoe Brigley considers many secrets - between man and woman, mother and daughter, teacher and pupil, rich and poor, North and South, familiar and strange. Using a large variety of poetic forms, her writing oscillates between global languages and minor ways of speaking. Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
- GenresPoetry
88 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2008
23 people want to read
About the author
Zoë Brigley
21 books54 followersZoë Brigley is the author of three books of poetry published by Bloodaxe: Hand & Skull (2019), Conquest (2012), and The Secret (2007). All three are UK Poetry Book Society Recommendations. Poems from the collections have won an Eric Gregory Award for the best British poets under 30, have been longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize for the best international writers under 40, and were Forward Prize commended.
She has also published a collection of nonfiction essays: Notes from a Swing State: Writing from Wales and America (Parthian 2019), which was well received in reviews. Her most recent chapbooks include: Aubade After A French Movie (Broken Sleep, 2020), Into Eros (Verve, 2021), and Lycanthrope (Salò Press, 2024). She collaborated with Kristian Evans for a prose chapbook Otherworlds: Writing on Nature and Magic (Broken Sleep 2021), and with Jenny Mitchell and Roy McFarlane for the forthcoming Family Name (Nine Pens, 2023).
Her writing appears in publications like Australian Book Review, Chicago Review, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Poetry Ireland Review, Orion, Poetry Review, PN Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Copper Nickel, and Waxwing.
She researches literature, film, trauma, and representations of violence. She co-edited the academic volume Feminism, Literature, and Rape Narratives (with Sorcha Gunne). Her research articles appear in The Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Formations, Feminist Media Studies, Gender and Education, and Contemporary Women’s Writing. For a number of years, she produced a podcast with her students on anti-violence advocacy at SinisterMyth.com .
She became editor for Wales’ leading poetry journal Poetry Wales in 2021, and she is now Poetry Editor for Seren Books jointly with the poet Rhian Edwards. She was also an editor for Magma Poetry, a special issue on ‘Dwelling’ in 2021 with Kristian Evans and Rob Mackenzie. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she also curated Dwelling During the Pandemic: An Ohio Poetry Project.
With Kristian Evans, she was co-editor of the Seren anthology 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren 2021), and together they founded MODRON: Writing on the Ecological Crisis, which she works on with Evans and editors Taz Rahman, Siân Melangell Dafydd, and Glyn Edwards.
Zoë is a disabled writer; she is deaf and identifies as neurodivergent.
She has also published a collection of nonfiction essays: Notes from a Swing State: Writing from Wales and America (Parthian 2019), which was well received in reviews. Her most recent chapbooks include: Aubade After A French Movie (Broken Sleep, 2020), Into Eros (Verve, 2021), and Lycanthrope (Salò Press, 2024). She collaborated with Kristian Evans for a prose chapbook Otherworlds: Writing on Nature and Magic (Broken Sleep 2021), and with Jenny Mitchell and Roy McFarlane for the forthcoming Family Name (Nine Pens, 2023).
Her writing appears in publications like Australian Book Review, Chicago Review, Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, Poetry Ireland Review, Orion, Poetry Review, PN Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Copper Nickel, and Waxwing.
She researches literature, film, trauma, and representations of violence. She co-edited the academic volume Feminism, Literature, and Rape Narratives (with Sorcha Gunne). Her research articles appear in The Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Formations, Feminist Media Studies, Gender and Education, and Contemporary Women’s Writing. For a number of years, she produced a podcast with her students on anti-violence advocacy at SinisterMyth.com .
She became editor for Wales’ leading poetry journal Poetry Wales in 2021, and she is now Poetry Editor for Seren Books jointly with the poet Rhian Edwards. She was also an editor for Magma Poetry, a special issue on ‘Dwelling’ in 2021 with Kristian Evans and Rob Mackenzie. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she also curated Dwelling During the Pandemic: An Ohio Poetry Project.
With Kristian Evans, she was co-editor of the Seren anthology 100 Poems to Save the Earth (Seren 2021), and together they founded MODRON: Writing on the Ecological Crisis, which she works on with Evans and editors Taz Rahman, Siân Melangell Dafydd, and Glyn Edwards.
Zoë is a disabled writer; she is deaf and identifies as neurodivergent.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 21, 2023
A great introduction to a fascinating and vividly exuberant poet.
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