Looking Across the River, Susan Connolly

Looking Across the River is a book of visual poetry about growing up in Droghed, Co. Louth. The book is in three sections, each with a different focus. The Landscape of 'The sun, moon and stars' is at Baltray and Mornington where the River Boyne flows into the sea. Connolly typed the lines of poetry on a Siverette typewriter. 

'Sunpath' is set 8km upriver from Drogheda at Brú na Bóinne, 'the bend of the Boyne', at the prehistoric passage-tombs of Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange. What were our ancestors saying in their art? No one will ever know. Connolly's is a personal interpretation. 

The theme of 'Drogheda' is its shops and buildings, beginning with the Tholsel, pivotal at the very heart of Drogheda. Connolly has vivid memories of shopping with her mother as a child. Now and again they brought a broken toaster or a faulty radio to Fintan Murphy's electrical shop, first at his premises in James Street before it was demolished, then in Dyer Street before that too was demolished. Connolly collected her comic every Monday from McKeon's Newsagent in Narrow West Street. There were long queues outside the Abbey and the Gate cinemas for the Saturday matinée. The poems are a combination of image and handwriting. Handwriting is personal as a fingerprint.  

Published by Redfoxpress
Limited Edition of 100
Hardcover
44 pages 
140 x 210 mm