Award-winning poet Dawn Gorman's pamphlet, Instead, Let Us Say (Dempsey & Windle, 2019) was published after she won the 2019 Brian Dempsey Memorial Award. It looks with compassion and resilience at everything from the plight of the natural world to personal loss, reflects on how we might all perceive things differently, and offers a message of hope for dark times.
Praise for Instead, Let Us Say:
'Down to earth, tender and compassionate, these are resilient poems 'loud with life', grounded in working-class roots, with a delicious alertness to sensual detail. Equally remarkable is their unabashed metaphysics, celebrating the hidden realities of love and unity of all life. On Hearing Alice Oswald Read Memorial is sheer genius.'
- Rosie Jackson
'This pamphlet - Dawn's third - is a treasure-trove of moments caught in passing and held up to the light of the poet's imagination. Her work shows us how the central paradox of poetry is accomplished: how words can preserve fleeting impressions, stay the ephemeral, capture the intangible.'
- Lesley Saunders
'This is a sensual, tender-hearted poetry, aglow with its own humanity. There is, throughout, an intensely felt oneness with the natural world, rendered by a true poet in possession of impressive technical gifts. A very fine collection that rewards our attention.'
- Martin Malone
