‘Discovery, rediscovery, and creation, whether it happens by chance, transcendence, or hard graft are the central themes for Broken Circle. In “Flight”, the poet has an opportunity to feel space, and “sense by taste and sight/the versatility of air and light.” He “learns quickly on the wing/ and sees the universe.” In “Touch”, the discovery of intimacy with a lioness is described, “…we were at one and at peace/ she sat nearby on haunches watching me/ with twilight calm in her sad unflinching eyes.” In an antique photo the poet discovers who his father might have been. “The sun soft-feathers his features/ face quizzical, eyes clear./Of all the places I’ve searched/I never imagined he would be here”.
‘ Like Blake’s world in a grain of sand, Michael G. Casey’s poem, “Fluke”, re-creates the wonder of the oyster’s transformation from grit to pearl using words and lines as layered as nacre.’
Sarah James
‘And what of the beautiful work of Mike Casey of Dublin, a Grand Prize Winner of Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Competition? This is some of Ireland’s amazing contemporary verse...reading these poems will create a thirst for more – more Casey and Carson, Morrissey and Deane – more trips to the source.’
Brian Turner for Atlanta Review
‘“The Loss that Height Entails” is a marvellous re-working of an ancient myth. This poet has the necessary awareness to carry it off.’
Máire Mhac an tSaoi
‘“Back to the World” is the kind of poem you wish you’d written yourself.’
Greg Delanty
‘Very powerful, intelligent poems, including “English Speaks Seductively”, made their presence immediately known... They display the same awareness of the language that is found in Brian Friel’s Translations... The poet employs a casuistry and persuasiveness to rival that of Browning’s dramatic monologues...’
Derek Selen
Michael G. Casey, an Irish National, married with three children, was educated at New Ross, University College Dublin and at the University of Cambridge where he earned a Ph.D. He has worked and taught in Dublin, Cambridge, Washington DC and the Caribbean Islands. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in many Irish, British and American journals. Winner of several national and international awards, he has been anthologised with writers such as Seamus Heaney, Nadine Gordimer, Derek Walcott, Billy Collins, and Jorge Luis Borges. He has published novels and a prize-winning collection of short fiction (2007). A book, entitled Ireland’s Malaise was published by the Liffey Press in October 2010. Nine of his stage plays (short and full-length) have been produced by the Umbrella Theatre Company, one, by invitation, in the Henrik Ibsen Museum, Oslo. He has written for The Irish Times and Sunday Times. Although he has published numerous individual poems in various journals, Broken Circle, is his first collection.
