Congratulations to Sinéad Morrissey, whose fifth collection, Parallax, was last night awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. It’s well-deserved; the book is fantastic, a favourite among the bookshop staff for its well-honed precision, good humour and clear vision recalling Derek Mahon or Elizabeth Bishop. Some of the best lines are from the wonderful ‘Migraine’:
I have given up all hope for what was whole -
the monkey under the orange tree,
the tatterdemalion nightingale.
