The genuine article
Rita Ann Higgins' new collection "An Awful Racket" was published earlier this year. Review by David Horn - whose views are not necessarily shared by Bloodaxe.

"Some people know what it's like to be called a cunt in front of their children..." writes Irish poet Rita Ann Higgins who's "An Awful Racket" has just been published by Bloodaxe. "And some people don't".

Seamus Heaney it ain't, yet there is no denying the crackling vitality of Higgins' uncompromising writing.

Rita Ann is the genuine article. Born in Galway in 1955 where she still lives, she left school at 14. One of 13 brothers and sisters, she was brought up in semi-rural poverty. At the age of 22 she had been working in a factory for six years. Recovering from TB in a sanatorium, she read her first book.

Higgins started writing in her late twenties. Now, twelve years later she has published seven books of poetry and four plays. She has been writer in residence at the National University of Ireland, held an honorary professorship in Texas, and received numerous awards and bursaries. She has also attained two degrees.

With a CV like that, you wouldn't expect "An Awful Racket" to be an easy ride. And it certainly isn't: Higgins presents us with a documentary record of life and poverty in semi-rural Ireland, with all the grit and violence that entails.

Yet the collection is shot through with optimism and black humour. The "Awful Racket" of the title poem is the tennis implement left behind by a departed husband, and burnt hilariously along with his wardrobe by the wife and children he abandoned. The abusive alcoholic husband of "Hey Greggie" falls as he staggers home from the pub one night:

The fall made a hole in his head,
a clean hole all things considered,
you'd fit a farmer's hand inside it - whack.

I'm still collecting his pension
and he's three years dead now
I have lunch out
in the Imperial every week
and it's on him - clack.

These poems are often about female toughness, and always about survival against steep odds. But it's not just their subject matter that captivates.

Higgins captures the intonations and inflections of the ordinary people of Ireland perfectly. And she does more than this - she sees music and pride in their "awful racket", and turns their everyday language into poetry. From "Hey Greggie" again:

I knew as true
as there's shit in a duck
that one day he'd get his -
and he did - quack.

She celebrates the dignity and beauty of people

Higgins celebrates the dignity and beauty of ordinary people, especially of ordinary women. And she finds it in the most surprising places.

In "They Never Wear Coats" she writes about teenage girls drinking on a night out in Newcastle's Bigg Market, a place where "A glance that lingers longer than a second/ is at least the promise of a blow job". Higgins celebrates their strength, and the bonds of friendship that tie them to each other closer than they will be to any of the faceless young Geordie men they "meet". The poem concludes:

Again they link their precious friends,
they are ready for Geordie,
no need to beat around the bush,
they speak his language.

'I'll shag him the neet
and he won't know what hit him,
big Geordie fuck.'