Colette Bryce's first collection is a book of songs: songs of kinship and desire, Ireland and Spain, of myth and belief. Bryce's sensuous and sinuous verse follows the convoluted lines of fate and political divide, and turns on questions of love and faith - the poet's relentlessly clarifying sense leaving them strengthened or shaken. In its insistent music - whatever dark and surreal turns it might take - Bryce's poetry is ultimately a celebration of singing and of singing out, for its own sake. The Heel of Bernadette announces one of the most unusual and distinctive voices to have emerged from Northern Ireland for a generation.

Author Biography

Colette Bryce is an Irish poet currently based in the north of England. Her collections with Picador include The Heel of Bernadette(2000), winner of the Aldeburgh Prize, The Full Indian Rope Trick (2004), short-listed for the T S Eliot Prize, and Self-Portrait in the Dark (2008). She received the Cholmondeley Award in 2010. The Whole & Rain-domed Universe (2014) was short-listed for the Forward, Costa and Roehampton Poetry Prizes, and winner of a Ewart-Biggs Award in memory of Seamus Heaney. Selected Poems, drawing on all her books, is a PBS Special Commendation 2017. www.colettebryce.com