"Pushed Toward the Blue Hour" is a collection of three distinctly styled poets who found their voice together in the West of Ireland. Hailing from Galway, New Zealand and Tennessee, Tracy Gaughan, Claire Loader and K.T. Slattery have been writing together for the last five years, their debut collective anthology a unique sampling of poetic voices alive to issues in contemporary women's poetry. Thematically, the poems cover much ground: the body politic, desire, impermanence, family, absence and the weight of womanhood. Like the poem Auguries, a deep dive into the underbelly of Galway City, each poem scratches the surface of the everyday, sifting through life to find its hidden meanings.
I take flight. This city disconcerts me. Sometimes
it's a poet's dream, sometimes a viper's nest, a sewer. An abrading cart
is being pushed toward the blue hour by a garbageman: a man of litters
who studies the stars.
-Auguries, Tracy Gaughan