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In Pathogens Love A Patsy, Rita Ann Higgins bears witness to a moment in Irish life unlike any seen in a century: the Covid-19 crisis. Many of these pandemic poems, broadcast on Brendan O'Connor's RT Radio 1 show, were composed weekly in direct response to the emerging crisis.
At the center of the collection, a devastating sequence celebrates the memory of Hanna Greally, wrongfully incarcerated in an Irish psychiatric hospital for almost two decades. Then, completing an informal triptych, a selection of work written before the emergency marks the point when everything changed.
Rita Ann Higgins's wry, conversational style serves a serious purpose: to tell it like it is. Together, the poems in Pathogens Love a Patsy form a narrative that spans eighty years, from a past that is still being addressed, to a present moment that is still unfolding.
"Art in extremis always has a special music that's tense with risk and innovation. I believe this wonderful collection will be a message in a bottle for Higgins' future readers, a souvenir of the time when we laughed and cried for life and death."
Robert McCrum
"Higgins has a talent for tuning into our everyday lives, making the ordinary border on the epic..."
Colette Sheridan
"Higgins's work does not function to keep anyone out, but invites them to sit on the back wall with her, looking in all directions from this edge."
Moynagh Sullivan
