By Amy Abdullah Barry

Flirting with Tigers

Deceptively light-footed, delivered with humour and a sometimes feisty independence of spirit, the poems in Amy Abdullah Barry’s debut collection are prompted by wonder and appreciation. If travel is an essential ingredient for this Irish-based Malaysian-born poet, what unites these wide- and far-ranging poems are the glimpses of the poet’s origin story, the personalities and relationships of an extended family life that continues to be the measure for subsequent experiences.

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Deceptively light-footed, delivered with humour and a sometimes feisty independence of spirit, the poems in Flirting with Tigers, Amy Abdullah Barry’s debut collection, are prompted by wonder and appreciation. If travel is an essential ingredient for this Irish-based Malaysian-born poet, what unites these wide- and far-ranging poems are the glimpses of the poet’s origin story, the personalities and relationships of an extended family life that continues to be the measure for subsequent experiences.

“A distinctive new voice in Irish poetry, Amy Abdullah Barry evokes people and place in rich sensuous detail, exploring mystery and danger alongside love and loss.Her debut collection travels from the rain forests of her childhood home in Malaysia to the banks of the Suck in the Irish midlands with zestful poems of warmth, insight and surprise. “
— Jane Clarke

“Amy Abdullah Barry is a joyous Penang sensation, reminding us that blood from outside is truly good, as Máire Mhac an tSaoí once wrote, renewing our imaginations and making us strong. Her poems have cast a set of renewing spells across the Irish landscape, she has drawn cards with cryptic images from the green baize writing-table and given us a Malay treasure-trove of lemongrass, chillies and durians.”
— Thomas McCarthy

We move from the tastes and smells of her mother’s and grandmother’s kitchens in Penang to the hawthorn hedges and stone walls of Athlone and from the shore of the Andaman Sea to the river Suck in the Shannon basin … She moves with ease across both landscapes, going ‘eye to eye with a boar’ and sets out her stall early with the declaration: ‘I pin the breath of a rainforest on my skin’.
– Jean O’Brien

Flirting with Tigers
Amy Abdullah Barry
April 2023
70pp, 140 x 216 mm
ISBN 9781915629081 HB
ISBN 9781915629098 PB

Cover image by Gaetano Tranchino

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About The Author

Author

Amy Abdullah Barry, originally from Penang, Malaysia, now lives in Athlone. She is published widely in journals and magazines and featured in Breaking Ground Ireland. Her poems have been translated into many languages and she has been awarded Literature bursaries from The Arts Council and Words Ireland. Chosen for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2022, she has performed her work in Ireland and internationally. A travel lover, she previously worked in the media, hotel and oil/gas industry. She regularly organises poetry events in her hometown. Flirting with Tigers is her debut collection of poems.