On the Night Watch

Following the publication of Collected Poems, and the critically acclaimed For All We Know, Ciaran Carson has produced in just over one short but powerfully felt year two extraordinary volumes of poetry, Until Before After and On the Night Watch. Like its companion volume, On the Night Watch moves within the tight emotional spaces of worry and waiting that characterize a period of illness in the family, creating an echo-chamber in the short-lived sonnets of this volume. The intricate and yet spare allegory of these poems details the arduous ways in which we try to cope with life’s hardships.