Jessica Traynor's New Arcana: reviews & interviews
‘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
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 was 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.
Jessica launched New Arcana with readings in Galway, Dublin and Belfast. Details of forthcoming readings & workshops are here: https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/events?articleid=1188
Her joint Bloodaxe online launch was held on 30 September 2025, and is now available to watch via YouTube - scroll down for details.
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IRISH BOOKS OF THE YEAR
RTÉ Culture, The best Irish books of 2025, online 3 December 2025
Jessica Traynor’s fourth collection New Arcana was included in Lauren Murphy’s RTÉ Culture feature on the Best Irish books of 2025.
‘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)
Read the full feature online here.
The piece included a link to James Patterson's brilliant RTÉ Culture Book of the Week review of New Arcana from September 2025.
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2025/0928/1535121-book-of-the-week-new-arcana-by-jessica-traynor/#
INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA TRAYNOR ON RTÉ RADIO 1
Poetry People, RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 26 October 2025, 7pm
A ten-minute interview with Jessica Traynor featured on the final episode of the autumn series of RTÉ Radio 1’s Poetry People on 26 October. She read and introduced three poems from her fourth collection 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.
‘Halloween's approaching, this week's poets explore life, death, and the unexpected, featuring Jessica Traynor's new collection & Trish Bennett's poem that went on a lunar adventure.’
The programme remains available on the RTÉ website. It starts at 6:27, and Jessica features from 20:05.
PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA TRAYNOR
Get Around To It podcast, Monday 20 October 2025
Jessica Traynor was interviewed on the Get Around To It podcast on 20 October. She was speaking to co-host Aoife Barry about her fourth collection New Arcana.
Jessica began by speaking about her three cultural picks. She went on to talk about New Arcana, which Aoife Barry described as a ‘really sparky, really great collection’.
‘Poet Jessica Traynor fills us in on her new collection New Arcana, and tells us what she got around to lately’
Jessica is introduced at 54.36. She speaks about New Arcana from 58.35.
https://shows.acast.com/68b875fcb4b4b9b3d2ed6e25/68f38b5d80f26677405f498e
NEW ARCANA REVIEWED ON BOOKS FOR BREAKFAST PODCAST
Books for Breakfast, Episode 84: New Poetry Collections Reviewed, Thursday 2 October 2025
Jessica Traynor’s just-published fourth collection New Arcana was very well reviewed by poet Adam Wyeth on the Books for Breakfast podcast on 2 October 2025. Adam was in conversation about the book with co-host Enda Wylie. Adam began by speaking about the poems relating to the Tarot in New Arcana.
‘They’re not just poems about loss and absence, but rather a kind of challenging, a re-making of the world, and the lens or central conceit is the Tarot. […] These are symbolic, alchemical poems shaping a new mythology out of pain.’
The poems relating to the loss of a dear friend by (personified in the poems as ‘lydia deetz’) are described by Adam as ‘a series of heartbroken letters across time […] refracted through the strange glow of Tim Burton films.’
Adam read the short poem ‘The Conductor, xxv’ from New Arcana, and a recording of Jessica reading her poem ‘King of Wands (Reversed)’ was played.
New Arcana is discussed from 28:16. Listen via Buzzsprout here.
BOOK OF THE WEEK ONLINE IN RTÉ CULTURE
RTÉ Culture, Book of the Week: New Arcana, online 28 September 2025
Jessica Traynor’s fourth collection New Arcana was given a brilliant in-depth review by James Patterson in his Book of the Week feature of 28 September 2025. Bloodaxe’s video of Jessica Traynor reading from New Arcana was embedded within the article.
‘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)
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2025/0928/1535121-book-of-the-week-new-arcana-by-jessica-traynor/#
ARTICLE BY JESSICA TRAYNOR IN TOLKA
Tolka, ‘Arcana’ by Jessica Traynor, online 25 September 2025 (first published in Issue 4, November 2022)
Jessica Traynor’s article ‘Arcana’, first published in Issue 4 of Tolka Journal in November 2022, has been published on the Tolka website to mark publication of her fourth collection New Arcana. In this article, Jessica writes about her experience of the tarot as she was growing up.
In New Arcana, poems in memory of Jessica’s friend who died by suicide are interwoven with numbered poems from a newly imagined Major Arcana. The tarot card-inspired front cover was designed especially for the book by Lisa Sterle.
https://www.tolkajournal.org/read-online/arcana-jessica-traynor
VIDEO POEM FEATURE ONLINE IN BOOKS IRELAND
Books Ireland, online 23 September 2025
A video of Jessica Traynor reading her poem 'and the girl inside me' from her new collection New Arcana went online in Books Ireland on 23 September 2025 to mark publication. The text of the poem accompanied the film.
https://booksirelandmagazine.com/jessica-traynor-reads-from-her-new-collection-new-arcana/
REVIEW COVERAGE IN THE IRISH TIMES
The Irish Times, Saturday 20 September 2025
Jessica Traynor’s fourth collection New Arcana was very well reviewed by Martina Evans at the top of her poetry feature in The Irish Times of 20 September 2025. The illustration (a photo of Winona Ryder) and caption referred to New Arcana: ‘Jessica Traynor’s New Arcana speaks through the persona of Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) from Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice’.
‘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
The review is available online by subscription. The online edition is illustrated with a colour photograph of Jessica Traynor.
An excellent review of New Arcana featured in the Autumn 2025 Poetry Book Society Bulletin.
'A hard-hitting collection, shaded with light and dark, which makes sense of the cruelty of life through the lens of cartomancy and the films of Tim Burton. Inventive and visceral, these poems are songs of grief, pointers of accusation, dissections of trauma and loss. The desperately tender poems in memory of a lost friend, Lydia, are countered by hopeful, gentle poems about the poet’s daughters. A collection which looks at life askance, chronicling what occurs when “angel(s) / look away”.' – Shash Trevett, Poetry Book Society Autumn Bulletin 2025, on New Arcana
In print only. Sent out to members of the Poetry Book Society.
ONLINE POEM FEATURES
Basket, Issue 3, March 2025
Jessica Traynor’s poem 'On Halloween' was featured in Issue 3 of Basket, the online magazine for contemporary poetry. The poem is now included in New Arcana.
https://basketmagazine.co.uk/issues/issue-3/jessica-traynor/
RTÉ Culture, online 20 September 2024
A piece by Jessica Traynor about her multi-part poem 'Movie Night with Lydia' was featured online in RTÉ Culture on 20 September 2024 for Culture Night Ireland. Jessica’s introduction was followed by the poem, which is now included in her fourth collection New Arcana. The feature ran under the headline: ‘Tim Burton revisited - poet Jessica Traynor on movies and memory’.
ONLINE LAUNCH FOR NEW ARCANA
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. Wonderful readings and discussion from all three poets.
Now available on YouTube.
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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.
[22 September 2025]
