The poems in Rose Interior move between the inside and outside of everything they touch, from the domestic scene, both cosy and claustrophobic, to the social and ecological settings we must all answer for. Poems from Ireland, Switzerland and Australia consider life at home in the personal sense: through the body, childhood memories and family houses, ‘a room within a dream’. Wherever home lies, it’s always on borrowed time. The collection turns inward to ponder human transience. Yet there’s also the wider sense of our place in the world, where the natural environment requires our closer attention, especially the things we ignore or devalue when we put self at the centre. Against the background of the global pandemic and ongoing climate change, the book’s last section deals with experiences of home education during lockdowns, for better and for worse. It calls for more kindness not only to ourselves, but to younger generations and our future.
