Gill McEvoy – författare

Gill McEvoy is a poet who moves through the world with all her senses open. The quality of attention here is profound and pays off in an elegance of phrase and originality of image that makes these poems sing off the page. There is often a playfulness at work in the linguistic dexterity of these pieces, as the poet engages in a car chase with the moon or the flora, fauna and meteorology of October are presented as a weather forecast. There is a connection to land here that is lived and authentic, it is never sentimental, but it brims with hope and generosity even in those moments when we know ‘the longed-for vision’ might never appear.

1970 and Gill's husband, Finbar, receives a Fullbright Scholarship to do research at Duke University, North Carolina. They leave Dublin to live among fellow academics but the constant barbecues, parties and suppers soon pall. So they rent a rural wooden farmhouse on a 'haze of romantic adventure'.Soon Gill is growing vegetables, milking cows, churning butter, quilting, training horses, surviving termites and getting to know neighbours who speak almost the same language in a very different culture.Written with warmth and sparkling wit, Three Years in Orange County is an insightful, immersive read.