The Wrong Miracle

by Liz Gallagher

Features poems of wide-ranging themes and approaches. This work presents poems that zone in on death, on loneliness, on a graveyard visit, and on war. It also includes a series of love poems that incite gorgeous, off-centre views on love.

80 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2009

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that will grow on you if you give it time. I certainly won't be selling my copy on eBay any time soon, for starters there's hardly a page that doesn't have underlining in five colours and notes in the margins cross-referencing the different poems and that's not counting the three A4 pages of notes I wrote before I even began typing this up most of which I simply don't have room to talk about. These poems made me think and they made me remember. A lot of them made me sad but sad in a good way if that makes any sense to you at all. Liz is a poet – I'm sure she'll know exactly what I mean by that.

You can read my full review on my blog here.

[Barry Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unpublished endorsement: These are poems that may surprise: sprinkled with humour and vivid word pictures. The verbal twists take you by a friendly matter-of-fact hand to show you other truths. Liz Gallagher owns a true poet’s eye for detail paired with a flair for oddly compelling juxtaposition. Her poetry wants to show you this other thing it has found, like a cat displaying its catch. (as in her poem) ‘Just look what the cat dragged in’.
- Barry Harris
- Tipton Poetry Journal

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wrong Miracle by Liz Gallagher uses tongue twisting phrases and juxtaposition to shed light on and deal with the expectations of family and society. Wrong miracles occur everyday in Gallagher’s world from the cat that drags in a poem it found to a breeze that cracks the narrator open. Gallagher’s playful phrases will have readers smiling in amusement, and she enjoys turning cliches upside down.

“I still have not

bought the doghouse — a real one, not

the metaphorical one where husbands some

times hang out while wives are belt loosening

or just simply giving things a twirl.” (From “Prelude to Getting One’s Act Together,” Page 15)

In many cases, Gallagher is whimsical with her imagery even when her poems deal with serious events, such as paying for the best and getting something unexpected and disappointing. In “Woman in a Redhead,” she seeks a new look, cappuccino hair that ends up being red and having to deal with the result.

“On my way home, I fake a swagger and ants

in my pants. I am singularly impressed by the rife

humour that is making its way down the broad of my

back. I will be back to get my cappuccino-chocolate hair,

I think. Sometimes we don’t get what we pay for and blood

does curdle.” (Page 3)

But beneath the whimsy of her verse lies a dark anger and disappointment that simmers and bursts forth. Can you talk yourself into doing anything? Can you justify waterboarding like you can justify jumping out of an airplane with a parachute as a hobby? Is the unthinkable a norm that we haven’t gotten used to yet? Gallagher asks these questions and more, but she also examines fatherly love and forgiveness.


Read the rest of the review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2010/06/t...

[Arlene Ang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether about an untranslated paragraph on shooting ducks or breakfast cereals, Picasso and a sexual snap, Liz Gallagher's poems are proof that everyday movements generate power and magic.

The Wrong Miracle is the work of a master illusionist — a fusion of the surreal and the domestic, the strategic and the spontaneous — here perception is challenged and subtly reinvented.

[Manuela]

When is it going to be published in Australia?

[Rho]

delightful