Jessica Traynor Readings

 

‘Themes of memory, love and loss rub shoulders with Tarot in Dublin poet Jessica Traynor’s fourth collection. [...] a strikingly beautiful nod to the lasting echoes of a friendship - and one not without humour at times, too.’ – Lauren Murphy, RTÉ Culture (The best Irish books of 2025)

 

Irish poet Jessica Traynor's fourth collection New Arcana was published by Bloodaxe Books on 25 September 2025.  It follows Pit Lullabies, published by Bloodaxe in 2022, which was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the inaugural Yeats Society Poetry Prize in 2023. Her first two collections Liffey Swim (2014) and The Quick (2019) were published by Ireland’s Dedalus Press.

New Arcana explores grief and the power of female friendship through readings of the Tarot and Tim Burton movies. Moving from teenage friendship and destructive relationships towards a tangling with the realities of family life, this highly inventive collection builds into a heartbroken letter to a dear friend who died by suicide. 

Jessica Traynor is the recipient of the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry 2023, which honours outstanding Irish poets based in Ireland, and the Field Day Tundish Award 2024 for contribution to the arts in Ireland.  

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Jessica launched New Arcana with in-person readings in Galway, Dublin and Belfast, as well as online with Bloodaxe on 30 September 2025 (scroll down to watch via YouTube). 

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'Movie Night with Lydia' from New Arcana was featured online in RTE Culture on 20 September 2024, introduced by Jessica Traynor.  Read the feature here.

'On Halloween' from New Arcana was featured in Issue 3 of the online poetry magazine Basket.  Read the poem here.

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A ten-minute interview with Jessica Traynor featured on RTÉ Radio 1’s Poetry People on 26 October 2025. She read and introduced three poems from New Arcana: ‘Lydia’, the ‘heart scalding’ poem ‘Satanic Panic’, and ‘On Halloween’.  Jessica discussed the book’s themes of the Tarot, Tim Burton movies, and grief with the host, poet Rachael Hegarty.

The programme starts at 6:27, and Jessica features from 20:05.  Listen here.

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‘New Arcana is Jessica Traynor’s striking, ambitious elegy for an old school friend who died by suicide and speaks here through the persona of Lydia Deetz from Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. Poems imagining a new Major Arcana are interwoven throughout the sometimes funny, always heartbreaking dialogue between Traynor and Lydia.’ – Martina Evans, The Irish Times

‘But what impresses most about the narrative threading New Arcana is the feeling of something revived or even resurrected by Traynor’s strange koans. The voice speaking back at us through the spirit board at the book’s centre feels so true to life that we can almost feel the planchette quivering beneath our fingertips. Ultimately what New Arcana is astute enough to recognise is that the subject of any resurrection necessarily emerges back into the world changed, a little off-centre, forever marked by their dying and the pain of being brought back.’ – James Patterson, RTÉ Culture (Book of the Week)    

For links to reviews, poem features and articles relating to New Arcana, see: https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/news?articleid=1559

 

FORTHCOMING WORKSHOP

 

Sunday 22 February 2026, 10am-4pm

'Preparing your Poetry for Publication.': One Day Workshop

Kildare Writing Centre, 23 Millford, Athgarvan, Newbridge, Co Kildare, W12YT51, Ireland

This one-day course will focus on editing techniques, approaches to literary journals and magazines, and techniques to shape poems into a pamphlet or collection.

Participants will come away with a new sense of confidence and direction in their ability to edit and shape their work and a personal plan for the next steps towards publication.

And all of this under the excellent facilitation of poet and poetry editor at Banshee Press, Jessica Traynor.

€120 per person. Spaces limited. Booking here.

 

PAST EVENTS & RECORDINGS

 

Tuesday 30th September 2025, 7pm, Bloodaxe joint launch event

Jessica Traynor was reading alongside Clare Pollard and the winner of the Mslexia Women's Poetry Pamphlet Competition, Emilie Jelinek.  They were celebrating the publication of their new collections and discussing them with each other and with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley.  Beautiful readings by all three poets, followed by an excellent discussion.  

Now available on YouTube. Jessica read last in each set.

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Jessica Traynor reads from New Arcana

Jessica Traynor reads and introduces four poems from New Arcana: ‘Lydia’, ‘Bog Virgin’, ‘i’m lydia deetz and all my friends are dead’, ‘Movie night with Lydia: 1: Becoming Catwoman’. Neil Astley filmed her reading from her collection at her home in Dublin in April 2024.

Pit Lullabies was one of Sinéad Gleeson’s 'stellar Irish writing' picks in The Irish Times’ Best books of 2022 of 26 November 2022.  Read the feature here.

The collection was also chosen by Irish Times poetry critics Martina Evans and Seán Hewitt for their best new poetry of 2022 feature in The Irish Times. Available by subscription here.

Further reviews, interviews and poem features for Pit Lullabies are on our news page here. 

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US POEM FILMS

Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation, film poems, online 27 February 2025 and 3 December 2022

The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation has made two films of poems from Irish poet Jessica Traynor’s third collection Pit Lullabies.  Both films are directed by Matthew Thompson.

The poem film ‘Midwinter’ was posted on 27 February 2025, performed by Ayesha Ostler.  The text of the poem accompanies the film on the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation website.
https://www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org/poems/midwinter
 

Ayesha Ostler reads 'Midwinter' from Jessica Traynor's third collection Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe Books, 2022).

 

The first Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation film of Jessica Traynor reading her poem 'Onion Poem' from Pit Lullabies was premiered a the Irish Arts Centre in New York at the 13th Annual PoetryFest in December 2022.  Jessica read in person at the festival alongside Ilya Kaminsky.

 

PAST EVENTS

Launch reading by Moniza Alvi, Amali Gunasekera and Jessica Traynor on Thursday 24th March 2022

Online launch event by Moniza Alvi, Amali Gunasekera and Jessica Traynor celebrating the publication of their new poetry collections.

The readings were followed by a discussion with the host, Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley. Now available on YouTube - see video below.  Jessica reads last in each set.

 

Poetry Book Society Instagram Live event - Wednesday 26 January 2022

Jessica Traynor read from her third collection Pit Lullabies for PBS Instagram Live. She appeared alongside Emily Berry, and was in conversation with Anthony Anaxagorou. Pit Lullabies is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Spring 2022.

The event is available to watch on the PBS Instagram.

[16 July 2025]

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