Jinx - Paperback

by Abigail Parry (Author)

Jinx: A ruinous charm, a quickdraw curse, a knight's move. Abigail Parry's first collection is concerned with spells, and ersatz spells: with semblance and sleight-of-hand. It takes its formal cues from moth-camouflage and stage magic, from the mirror-maze and the masquerade, and from high-stakes games of poker. Jinx asks about the equivocal nature of artifice, and the real mischief that underwrites the trick. The poems deal in forms of influence: in seduction and persuasion, infatuation and obsession. They want to talk about what we submit to, and what we are compelled by. Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2018.

Author Biography

Abigail Parry spent seven years as a toymaker before completing her doctoral thesis on wordplay. Her poems have been set to music, translated into Spanish and Japanese, broadcast on BBC and RTÉ Radio, and widely published in journals and anthologies. She has won a number of prizes and awards for her work, including the Ballymaloe Prize, the Troubadour Prize, and an Eric Gregory Award. Her first collection, Jinx, published by Bloodaxe in 2018, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2018 and the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize 2019.