And Now They Range

by

Karl O’Hanlon

Karl O’Hanlon’s first pamphlet is an immensely attractive thing. He treads a fascinating line between a cool, modest – at times austere – phrasing and an engagement with the passionate physicality of English on the tongue and in the ear: ‘Mystique of keratin / becoming forest’s altarpiece / then blood-whoop of a jay: / shattered obsidian // scattered into black elms.’ It is this contradiction, this ability to marry a technical restraint with an exuberantly overflowing language,  together with his wide-ranging concerns for history, family, art, love and nature, which drive the poems throughout this lovely, and hugely promising, short collection.

Toby Martinez de las Rivas

Karl O’Hanlon grew up in Purdysburn, County Down. He studied at Georgetown, Washington D.C. and has taught in Orléans. Recently, Karl completed a PhD at the University of York. He has worked as an editor for Eborakon magazine and his poems have appeared in Agenda, Stand, and PN Review.

And Now They Range is Karl’s debut, and a very impressive one. It has been printed and section sewn at Palace Printers in Lostwithiel on Mohawk Superfine papers and features a cover and frontis by artist Kate Walters.