In Her Jaws
Rosamund Taylor
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From the publisher
Tasting her still, I’d walk home
in smog, frost, past burnt-out cars,
and under bridges, as though the night
was safer than her bed.
In her debut collection, Rosamund Taylor dares us across thresholds and invites us to glimpse the world as we've never seen it before. She boldly charts a journey of survival and transformation with poems on history reimagined, astronomy, sorcery, wild landscapes, talismanic creatures, and queer love.
Taylor explores what it means to live in a female body that is not defined by lack, or want, or perpetual suffering, but is possessed by a real and defined sense of erotic autonomy.
These poems burn from the inside out with possibility, and there is magic, mystery and reclamation at every turn. In Her Jaws is a landmark debut that extends and deepens the Irish tradition of writing the female perspective, while also breaking new ground.
Praise for In Her Jaws:
"A book of astonishments whose poems gaze towards the night sky and all that stirs in the dark below, swooping the reader through mysteries of desire and discovery. Taylor's voice is by turns tender, sharp, luminous; her poems are wondrous." - Doireann Ni Ghriofa
"In these haunting, simmering metamorphoses, Rosamund Taylor's imagination is both intrepid and tender. Spanning the erotic and the traumatic, these poems root through the fibrous dark of our psyche. In Her Jaws is a breath-taking debut." - Sean Hewitt
"Taylor's poems possess a talismanic quality. With lyric sorcery, she conjures encounters with a chorus of wild creatures: spectres and lovers, selves and others. Beneath the seductive gleam of her poetry lies an invitation to glimpse the fabulous. In Her Jaws will hold you in thrall." - Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe
"Rosamund Taylor's stunning debut reignites the lyric tradition with poems that movingly and daringly explore pain and despair, desire and belonging while evoking the more-than-human world anew. Her voice is ever original and ever beautiful." - Jane Clarke
"In Her Jaws is an extraordinary achievement with poems gem-like in their intensity, clarity and precision - but make no mistake, there is wildness here too ... This is a debut that leaves bite marks in the most erotic and intoxicating sense ... In Her Jaws is here, finally, and it was certainly worth the wait." - Victoria Kennefick
"Taylor's language, form and imagery exhibit a remarkable freshness, resulting in work that manages to create a space between the uncanny and the familiar. Her sexuality and her feminism are carried candidly and address universals through the specifics of queer love and the experiences of women through history. This is the Irish lyric tradition queered in the manifold and finest meanings of that word. Taylor's is a poetry I do not want to be without. We are all the richer for it." - Paul Maddern
"In Her Jaws is by turns delicate and fierce; holding the reader gently in its muzzle, where we thrill to the awareness of teeth against our carotid. Taylor inhabits the natural world like no other writer working today; shapeshifting, questioning, and enthralling us with her curiosity. " - Jessica Traynor
"The reader travels wild paths in skilled hands. Taylor's voice is evocative, assured and unforgettable. This is absolutely exquisite." - Deirdre Sullivan