Devil's Piece by Lynn Valentine Judith Willson reviewing Longley’s previous book Angel

reviewing Longley’s previous book Angel Hill

In her second collection Kate Ashton examines woman’s estate from the warring perspectives of creativity and procreativity

Places without words become focal points: the poems seek articulation in life before birth and after death

Drawing on work written over four decades and arranged chronologically

to leaving one’s mark and understanding one’s place in the passage of time

Devil's Piece by Lynn Valentine Judith Willson reviewing Longley’s previous book AngelIn Devils Piece loss, absence, mental illness and pain are examined with a lens so clear and lucid, the heart aches. Yet in that clarity, there is a savouring of the smallest things and a permeability to love and life that creates songs of what might have been dirges. There is no dressing up of reality, no pretence that everything is well, but in these fearless, precise poems there is transformation. An exquisite collection.