Going By Water / Michael Coady

In his beautifully conceived, meticulously assembled new collection, Michael Coady, laureate of the home place, ruminates on and records the traces left by our lives. From the 'rhapsody of now' through 'words of love and grief, / the earth's embrace, its constancy' Going by Water celebrates enduring values and the mysterious triumphs of ordinary experience and everyday ritual. It recounts inherited as well as overheard and re-imagined stories. It ranges from the river traditions of his native town to take in a new Ireland and the newfound locales of Paris and beyond with their communities of the living and dead.