When the Tree Falls

Jane Clarke was born in 1961 and grew up on a farm in Co. Roscommon. She lives with her partner in Glenmalure, Co. Wicklow, where she combines writing with her work as a creative writing tutor and group facilitator. She holds a BA in English and Philosophy from Trinity College, Dublin, and an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales, and has a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Her first collection, The River, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. It was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, given for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry evoking the spirit of a place. In 2016 she won the Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry and the inaugural Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year Award. She was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland Literary Bursary in 2017. All the Way Home, Jane’s illustrated booklet of poems in response to a First World War family archive held in the Mary Evans Picture Library, London, was published by Smith|Doorstop in 2019. Her second book-length collection, When the Tree Falls (Bloodaxe Books, 2019), was shortlisted for the 2020 Pigott Poetry Prize, the Irish Times Poetry Now Award and the Farmgate Café National Poetry Award 2020, as well as being longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize 2020. Jane also edited Origami Doll, New and Collected Shirley McClure (Arlen House, 2019) and guest-edited The North 61: Irish Issue (The Poetry Business, 2019) with Nessa O’Mahony. In May 2020 Jane Clarke presented The Miners' Way, a half-hour feature for Radio 4 that was chosen for Radio 4's Pick of the Week. This included a new sequence of poems as well as one from When the Tree Falls.

The virtues of Jane Clarke's writing include a broad sympathy that never usurps the voice of the other, that guides the reader to understanding and respect; a pleasure in ingenious objects and crafts that is deftly transmitted; and a clarity which does not deny mystery but makes room for it.

• 11 Ryegrass12 He stood at the top of the stairs 13 That I could 14 The Rod 15 Nettles16 Cattle Stick17 sculling18 Sika Whistle 19 When winter comes 20 Birthing the Lamb 22 Some days 23 The Hurley-maker24 Point of Departure 25 In Glasnevin26 Those days27 Polling Station28 Metastasis 29 Copper Soles 30 you pull yourself up31 Swim 32 willowherb33 The Roof Rack 34 Camping at Bearna35 Hers36 The trouble37 Map 38 Mammogram39 When he falls asleep 40 Promise41 Barometer 42 Planting Trees 43 I’ve got you 44 Together45 Blue Cards 46 Cypress47 ‘At last! Are you here at last?’48 Night Nurse 49 Respects 50 Dunamon 51 Moon 52 Gone53 Lullaby54 When we left him 55 Aftergrass56 The Finest Specimen58 The Yellow Jumper 59 I imagine him telling me over the phone 60 When the tree falls61 Kelly’s Garden 63 Notes