Synopsis
Part memoir, part family history, part spiritual journey, the poems in Somewhere in Ireland tell a story of forgiveness, compassion and deep connection to Ireland he past and present.
The book’s colorful cover design features a dazzling Irish landscape by artist Lillie Morris, prominent artist in the Southeast, who captures Ireland's haunting beauty in her collages and paintings. Ten color pages of her art accompany the poems.
For more information and a sampling of poems, visit her website: www.lindawhittenberg.com
About the Author
Linda Whittenberg began writing poetry after retiring from Unitarian Universalist Ministry in 2000. She finds continuous inspiration for poems in her daily life in New Mexico as a well as in memories of a rural Illinois childhood. Two collections were published in 2009: Dying Can Wait, a chapbook by Pudding House Publications and Tender Harvest, a full-length collection published by Black Swan Editions. Tender Harvest was finalist for the New Mexico Poetry Award.
Somewhere in Ireland, Black Swan Editions, 2011, was inspired by personal discoveries during travel in Ireland. Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including: Adobe Walls, Passager, Santa Fe Literary Review, New Mexico Poetry Review, Sin Fronteras, Spoon River Poetry Review, Magnolia, Santa Fe Literary Review. She lives in Santa Fe, NM with her husband and their animal friends: a mule, a goat, and two cattle dogs.
Reviews
What people have to say about Somewhere in Ireland:
1) “First, wow! What a book you have here. Even though many of the poems were familiar from past readings I was still so moved, even to tears in places.
“I read it this time with less attention to individual poems and more to the story you were telling as a whole. The narrative behind it was what caught me the most--the way you open the book with your ambivalence and mixed feelings about your ancestry and family history, your imagined connection with the great-grandfather who left Ireland behind, your experience of Ireland itself and the process of self-discovery there and then coming around full circle to your Irish American roots and personal history as daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter. It all flowed so beautifully. I felt like I was reading a story, rather than a series of related poems.” Mariah Hegarty, poet/editor, Founding Editor of Manzanita Quarterly.
2) Linda Whittenberg deftly writes of Ireland and of the Irish in America both past and present. She will find readers everywhere who will make this book part of themselves. Joan McBreen’s poetry is published widely in Ireland and abroad and has been broadcast, anthologized and translated into many languages.
3) In a strong, honest, confident voice, at once American and Irish, Linda Whittenberg leads us …on a fascinating journey across the years and miles, from the dark days of The Famine in County Clare, over oceans and deserts and back again to the 21st Century…Somewhere in Ireland should appeal to readers on both sides of the Atlantic. County Kerry author John McGrath, manages Moybella Press which has published the work of Irish writers, including his book of poetry, Blue Sky Day.
4) I’m thinking it must be the Irish in her blood that makes so many of these poems sing. Like she herself says, “Sounds of a joyful hymn/sung in spite of sorrow.” Tom Crawford is author of six books of poetry, and recipient of the Pushcart Prize, Fore Word Book of the Year, the Oregon Book Award for Poetry, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.
