Poetry reading by Rosamund Taylor & Jessica Traynor

The Studio, LexIcon Library, 2 June, 7pm

The LexIcon welcomes Rosamund Taylor and Jessica Traynor to celebrate their new collections. Taylor’s In Her Jaws (Banshee) and Traynor’s Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe) explore transformations, of body, indentity, and of nature itself. Eerie and unexpected, these alchemical poems will reshape your world.

A poet and writer from Dún Laoghaire, Rosamund Taylor is a winner of the London Magazine Poetry Prize 2020 and the Mairtín Crawford Award for Poetry 2017. Widely published, her work has recently appeared in Butcher’s Dog, Fourteen Poems, Magma, Mslexia, The Rialto and Poetry Ireland Review, and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. A selection of her poems is included in Queering the Green: Post-2000s Queer Irish Poetry (Lifeboat Press). Her debut collection, In Her Jaws, is published by Banshee Press.

Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist and librettist. Her debut poetry collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick (Dedalus Press, 2018) was an Irish Times poetry choice. Awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. Paper Boat, an opera commission from Irish National Opera and Music for Galway, premiered in April 2022 and The Wanderer, a new dance opera commissioned by Irish Modern Dance Theatre, will premiere at Cork Midsummer Festival in June 2022. Residencies in 2021-22 include the Yeats Society Sligo, The Seamus Heaney Home Place and the DLR LexIcon. Her third collection, Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.