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mallaeuswastaken's review
3.0
Great stuff!
Didn't realize Hewitt was queer until the phrase "another man" showed up for the second time in a poem about jerking off so that was fun.
Otherwise, really great poetry incorporating all my favorite things like nature imagery, people dying, and Irish mythology.
Didn't realize Hewitt was queer until the phrase "another man" showed up for the second time in a poem about jerking off so that was fun.
Otherwise, really great poetry incorporating all my favorite things like nature imagery, people dying, and Irish mythology.
definitelyfinch's review
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
A beautiful book of poetry, lush and heady.
bgg616's review
5.0
I originally reviewed this with a single word - stunning. Sean Hewitt is stunning to read, to look at, and to listen to. At the young age of 30 (born 1990), he already has won a number of poetry prizes - a Northern Writers' Award in 2016, the Resurgence Prize in 2017, and an Eric Gregory Award in 2019. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times as one of their "30 under 30" most promising artists in Ireland, and he is currently shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, 2020. He earned a PhD at University of Liverpool, and currently is on the faculty at Trinity College Dublin.
This is his first collection, published in 2020. He writes poems that is imbued with nature, emotions that are creep up on the reader, and then hit the heart, with a vision of a world that is teeming with life and beauty in every crevice. He writes of worry, grief and loss over a lover seriously ill in hospital, and his father as he succumbed to illness. Yet these are not poems that pull you down, but instead buoy you up with their beauty.
I facilitate a new (2020 pandemic response) book club that reads Irish poetry. It is part of a contemporary Irish arts organization, Solas Nua, in Washington DC. The mission of this organization has been for more than 15 years, the promotion of new art from Ireland. To this end, the readings for this group has been to focus on upcoming, as well as poets who have been active in the last 20 years or so. Sadly, in just a few years, several of the preeminent poets in Ireland- Northern Ireland as well as the Republic of Ireland, have passed away. They include Seamus Heaney (2013), Ciaran Carson (2019), Eavan Boland (2020), and Derek Mahon (2020). See https://www.solasnua.org/poetry-group for our reading list.
I found Sean Hewitt through the English book blogger Simon Savidge. He read Hewitt's book last spring and raved about it. Hewitt holds British and Irish citizenship, and works in Dublin so he fit our criteria. I wanted to be inclusive and include LGBT writers. He is the second so far. I will also share that the group were bowled over by his poetry. These videos will provide a sample of this collection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHQC782ubHo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWjTrrq-I6c
This is his first collection, published in 2020. He writes poems that is imbued with nature, emotions that are creep up on the reader, and then hit the heart, with a vision of a world that is teeming with life and beauty in every crevice. He writes of worry, grief and loss over a lover seriously ill in hospital, and his father as he succumbed to illness. Yet these are not poems that pull you down, but instead buoy you up with their beauty.
I facilitate a new (2020 pandemic response) book club that reads Irish poetry. It is part of a contemporary Irish arts organization, Solas Nua, in Washington DC. The mission of this organization has been for more than 15 years, the promotion of new art from Ireland. To this end, the readings for this group has been to focus on upcoming, as well as poets who have been active in the last 20 years or so. Sadly, in just a few years, several of the preeminent poets in Ireland- Northern Ireland as well as the Republic of Ireland, have passed away. They include Seamus Heaney (2013), Ciaran Carson (2019), Eavan Boland (2020), and Derek Mahon (2020). See https://www.solasnua.org/poetry-group for our reading list.
I found Sean Hewitt through the English book blogger Simon Savidge. He read Hewitt's book last spring and raved about it. Hewitt holds British and Irish citizenship, and works in Dublin so he fit our criteria. I wanted to be inclusive and include LGBT writers. He is the second so far. I will also share that the group were bowled over by his poetry. These videos will provide a sample of this collection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHQC782ubHo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWjTrrq-I6c
mcg's review against another edition
3.0
i love seán hewitt and if i liked poetry this probably would have changed my life
aesopsdaddy's review
4.0
Haven’t read much poetry in a while so, after recently finishing Hewitt’s stunning ‘All Down Darkness Wide’, I decided to pick this up. I’m glad I read that memoir first because I was able to apprehend biographical resonances which made these poems all the more poignant. Theophanic and elegiac, in much of this tree-hugging debut, Hewitt dwells upon the ‘inscapes’ of Nature à la Hopkins—the unique inner, well, natures of natural things, be they lake or leaf. He mediates upon the destructive plasticity of decay, reaching the revelation that “nothing [is] lost, only translated”. I particularly related to this pantheistic theology and Hewitt’s queering of this; that God can be found on one’s knees, among the trees, either cruising or church-going.
lelliereads's review
4.0
Penguin press very kindly sent me Seán's memoir a few weeks ago which I loved. I decided to get his poetry book as well. Reading the memoir first really helped put some of these poems in perspective. Seán is a beautiful writer.