Description
Grace Wells’ When God Has Been Called Away to Greater Things is a debut collection of poems at once firmly earthed in the real yet intimately connected to the mythic. In poems of lyrical beauty and imaginative reach, Wells explores the complex world of familial relationships, from childhood exploits in the company of an older sister (“I leant upon the wisdom of her age”), through the difficulties and self-doubt of failed relationships (“What’s left, when the father of your children / has throw a basket at you, hard, / upturned the kitchen table, / breaking all the china you possess?”) to the refuge of supportive love (“I see love travels faster than light”).
Strength in times of hardship is found in the example of other women, in the community of artists and writers; and, despite the loneliness with which the title poem begins (“your heart a rusted camp bed, prised open”) with the morning, and abandonment, comes nevertheless the consolation of “an imprint, which lingers” – a suggestion of the power of faith and determination, no doubt, but also of the power of poetry to reveal the world.
The book received the 2011 Rupert and Eithne Strong Award for a debut collection of poetry.
ISBN 9781906614324 Paperback
140 x 216 mm, 90 pp
May 2010
