Porch Light

"In the poem 'Nuclear', after stating '... Nothing is ever obvious or contained', Ivy Ireland asks, 'How can I write / a lyric poem about the microneedle in the gargantuan multiverse?' Yet, in a book replete with angels, devils, evolutionary theory, astro-physics, mythology, magpie song, winter flowers, ghost gums, strangler figs, human love and human fear, this is what she does. Never obvious or contained, Porch Light is its own multi-verse of ideas, speculations and puzzlements. It swings from abstract terminology to idiomatic vigour, from doubt to joy, from mind to body. This is exciting writing, exciting reading." - Brook Emery



"Porch Light is an ambitious, intelligent and deft collection of poems. Ireland walks assuredly through the complex terrains of physical laws and balances, contemporary mysticism, pop-science and states of performed embodiment. This book believes utterly in the ability of human imaginations to make outlandish, seductive connections between worldly 'facts' and other-worldly possibilities." - Kate Fagan



"Graceful and bold, these poems commute between the celestial and the earthly, between angelic knowledge and human experience, courting the ineffable in a seductive, sensuous voice that James Merrill would have loved." - Kim Cheng Boey