! All’arme / ? And what… if not
! All'arme / ? And what... if not, published by Macha Press in 2024, is a tȇte-bȇche (head-to-toe or double) publication comprised of two experimental poetic works and a sequence of typographical sculptures by Belfast poet and artist Eilish Martin.
A ‘career apex’ poet whose natural home is at once on the margins and at the heart of the hybrid, Eilish Martin’s practice in ! All'arme / ? And what… if not is at once experimental, interdisciplinary and intercultural.
In content and visionary concept, the poetries published in this tête-bêche (head-to-toe) double book brings together lyrical fragmentation and narrative drive, language play, intertextual dialogue and textual innovation with unsettling anxieties and deep care for public and private worlds.
The collection catalogues some small part of what she herself has referred to as the ‘compulsive journey’ of her poetry-making and verbal-visual improvisations across the past ten years.
Praise for Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not :
Unconcerned with performing an anxious turn towards meaning, and in its preoccupations with scoring the moment, its journey of making, and the very act of reading - which is to say the deciphering of visual marks on a script - Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not invites us to consider how poetry in print operates through some of its first principles: the alphabet and punctuation. Its materiality; its privileging of the fragment; the embedded silences; its interdisciplinary urges spotlighting the porousness of borders; and its nod to translation as a transformative and communicative practice - all these are both a call to arms and refreshingly irreverent.
- Christodoulos Makris
In this new Macha Press publication, the letter on the page becomes more than just a conventional symbol – it becomes material / a gorgeous 'something’... while the page itself becomes ‘space as invention’, to quote that great formal innovator Georges Perec. This is an exciting new publishing endeavour whose mission is to take seriously the playful, collaborative, and inventive forms and styles being explored in poetry today.
- Tara Bergin
As only the most compelling poetries can, Eilish Martin’s ! All Arme , / ? And what... if not brings to mind my favourite poets and artists. Buzzing with meaningful experimentation, I think of works by C.D Wright, Kathryn Scanlan, Ailbhe Darcy, Helen Cammock, Caroline Bergvall, and Fiona Reilly. In her work, Martin pushes against simplistic interpretations of language, offering new ways to make meaning outside of the easily graspable. Her command of the page and of the subject and object of language is refreshing in its confidence. She asserts reading as an active experience that includes breath, sight and sound. To quote Martin herself: 'suffer it , squat here , draw back the lips'.
- Julie Morrissy
Note: This purchase is of the individual book described above. If you have already become a Subscriber or Supporter of Macha Press, you have purchased this title and should not complete this order unless you would like an additional individual copy of the book.
! All'arme / ? And what... if not, published by Macha Press in 2024, is a tȇte-bȇche (head-to-toe or double) publication comprised of two experimental poetic works and a sequence of typographical sculptures by Belfast poet and artist Eilish Martin.
A ‘career apex’ poet whose natural home is at once on the margins and at the heart of the hybrid, Eilish Martin’s practice in ! All'arme / ? And what… if not is at once experimental, interdisciplinary and intercultural.
In content and visionary concept, the poetries published in this tête-bêche (head-to-toe) double book brings together lyrical fragmentation and narrative drive, language play, intertextual dialogue and textual innovation with unsettling anxieties and deep care for public and private worlds.
The collection catalogues some small part of what she herself has referred to as the ‘compulsive journey’ of her poetry-making and verbal-visual improvisations across the past ten years.
Praise for Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not :
Unconcerned with performing an anxious turn towards meaning, and in its preoccupations with scoring the moment, its journey of making, and the very act of reading - which is to say the deciphering of visual marks on a script - Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not invites us to consider how poetry in print operates through some of its first principles: the alphabet and punctuation. Its materiality; its privileging of the fragment; the embedded silences; its interdisciplinary urges spotlighting the porousness of borders; and its nod to translation as a transformative and communicative practice - all these are both a call to arms and refreshingly irreverent.
- Christodoulos Makris
In this new Macha Press publication, the letter on the page becomes more than just a conventional symbol – it becomes material / a gorgeous 'something’... while the page itself becomes ‘space as invention’, to quote that great formal innovator Georges Perec. This is an exciting new publishing endeavour whose mission is to take seriously the playful, collaborative, and inventive forms and styles being explored in poetry today.
- Tara Bergin
As only the most compelling poetries can, Eilish Martin’s ! All Arme , / ? And what... if not brings to mind my favourite poets and artists. Buzzing with meaningful experimentation, I think of works by C.D Wright, Kathryn Scanlan, Ailbhe Darcy, Helen Cammock, Caroline Bergvall, and Fiona Reilly. In her work, Martin pushes against simplistic interpretations of language, offering new ways to make meaning outside of the easily graspable. Her command of the page and of the subject and object of language is refreshing in its confidence. She asserts reading as an active experience that includes breath, sight and sound. To quote Martin herself: 'suffer it , squat here , draw back the lips'.
- Julie Morrissy
Note: This purchase is of the individual book described above. If you have already become a Subscriber or Supporter of Macha Press, you have purchased this title and should not complete this order unless you would like an additional individual copy of the book.
! All'arme / ? And what... if not, published by Macha Press in 2024, is a tȇte-bȇche (head-to-toe or double) publication comprised of two experimental poetic works and a sequence of typographical sculptures by Belfast poet and artist Eilish Martin.
A ‘career apex’ poet whose natural home is at once on the margins and at the heart of the hybrid, Eilish Martin’s practice in ! All'arme / ? And what… if not is at once experimental, interdisciplinary and intercultural.
In content and visionary concept, the poetries published in this tête-bêche (head-to-toe) double book brings together lyrical fragmentation and narrative drive, language play, intertextual dialogue and textual innovation with unsettling anxieties and deep care for public and private worlds.
The collection catalogues some small part of what she herself has referred to as the ‘compulsive journey’ of her poetry-making and verbal-visual improvisations across the past ten years.
Praise for Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not :
Unconcerned with performing an anxious turn towards meaning, and in its preoccupations with scoring the moment, its journey of making, and the very act of reading - which is to say the deciphering of visual marks on a script - Eilish Martin's ! All'arme / ? And what... if not invites us to consider how poetry in print operates through some of its first principles: the alphabet and punctuation. Its materiality; its privileging of the fragment; the embedded silences; its interdisciplinary urges spotlighting the porousness of borders; and its nod to translation as a transformative and communicative practice - all these are both a call to arms and refreshingly irreverent.
- Christodoulos Makris
In this new Macha Press publication, the letter on the page becomes more than just a conventional symbol – it becomes material / a gorgeous 'something’... while the page itself becomes ‘space as invention’, to quote that great formal innovator Georges Perec. This is an exciting new publishing endeavour whose mission is to take seriously the playful, collaborative, and inventive forms and styles being explored in poetry today.
- Tara Bergin
As only the most compelling poetries can, Eilish Martin’s ! All Arme , / ? And what... if not brings to mind my favourite poets and artists. Buzzing with meaningful experimentation, I think of works by C.D Wright, Kathryn Scanlan, Ailbhe Darcy, Helen Cammock, Caroline Bergvall, and Fiona Reilly. In her work, Martin pushes against simplistic interpretations of language, offering new ways to make meaning outside of the easily graspable. Her command of the page and of the subject and object of language is refreshing in its confidence. She asserts reading as an active experience that includes breath, sight and sound. To quote Martin herself: 'suffer it , squat here , draw back the lips'.
- Julie Morrissy
Note: This purchase is of the individual book described above. If you have already become a Subscriber or Supporter of Macha Press, you have purchased this title and should not complete this order unless you would like an additional individual copy of the book.
About the Author:
Eilish Martin has published two previous collections of poetry, slitting the tongues of jackdaws (Summer Palace Press, 1999) and Ups Bounce Dash (Summer Palace Press, 2008). Her work has appeared in national and international journals and anthologies including Word of Mouth: Slovo iz Ust (St. Petersburg, 2004) The White Page/ An Bhileog Bhán; Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets (Salmon, 1999) Stinging Fly, HU, Artwords, Artslink, Cyphers and The Sunday Tribune. She has contributed translations to Seán Ó Ríordáin’s Selected Poems, edited by Frank Sewell (Yale University Press, 2014), and When the Neva Rushes Backwards, a bilingual anthology of work by five Russian poets compiled and translated by Word of Mouth Collective (Lagan Press, 2014).
In 2023, her poem ‘Paradise Fatigue’, featured in Passerine Nights, a musical composition by Ian Wilson for soprano and ensemble.
Publisher: Macha Press
Date Published: 17 October 2024
Paperback: 96 pages
ISBN: 978-1-0687699-0-0