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'he poems in Tracy Ryan's latest collection move on 'feet of drought and tinder' from Australia to the bogs of Ireland, drawing on many eras, to test the edges of both a cutover myth and a real landscape in need of recognition and preservation. What emerges from this poetic bogland is a hoard, an archive of histories and wishes, bright gold 'glimpses yielding up fragments then closing over'.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Bog Poetics : Tracy Ryan and Seamus Heaney
2021
single work
essay
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , October vol. 40 no. 3 2021; (p. 57-59) 'Tracy Ryan’s 2015 poetry collection, Hoard, muses upon the bogs of the poet’s ancestral Ireland. In doing so, Ryan engages knowingly with a landscape already excavated and embraced in poetry, as Seamus Heaney repeatedly wrote about bogs and bog bodies, heeding a call to ‘Lie down / in the word-hoard’ (1992: 11). A bog, as Ryan explains in a note at the end of the collection, ‘is a kind of wetland, like a sponge full of water, composed of peat – dead, partly decayed plant matter built up over great lengths of time . . . These conditions mean that things found in bogs are often near-perfectly preserved – from ancient hoards of tools and jewellery to actual human bodies’ (2015: 49). A bog is thus an amalgamation of disparate temporalities and materialities. Organic and inorganic matter, water, earth and plant matter create an acidic environment deprived of oxygen, in which human and animal bodies, medieval weapons, bronze age collars, Victorian boots, and modern rubbish can co-exist silently, hidden. Bogs are thus uniquely illustrative examples of what Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann call ‘storied matter’: ‘a material “mesh” of meanings, properties, and processes, in which human and nonhuman players are interlocked in networks that produce undeniable signifying forces’ (2014: 1-2). While for Iovino and Oppermann, all matter is storied, for poets such as Ryan and Heaney, the stories encased and layered in bogs are particularly enticing.' (Introduction) -
Chloe Wilson Reviews Tracy Ryan and Jill Jones
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , no. 53.0 2016;
— Review of Hoard 2015 selected work poetry ; Breaking the Days 2015 selected work poetry -
Found in Translation
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 16-17 January 2016; (p. 19)
— Review of Selected Poems from Les Fleurs Du Mal Jan Owen (translator), 2015 selected work poetry ; The Offhand Angel : New and Selected Poems 2015 selected work poetry ; Hoard 2015 selected work poetry -
A Review of Tracy Ryan’s Hoard and Jan Napier’s Thylacine
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly : Walking with the Flaneur 2016; (p. 108-111)
— Review of Hoard 2015 selected work poetry ; Thylacine 2015 selected work poetry -
[Review] Jill Jones, Breaking the Days [and] Trayc Ryan, Hoard
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 9 no. 1 2016;
— Review of Breaking the Days 2015 selected work poetry ; Hoard 2015 selected work poetry
-
Marion May Campbell Launches Tracy Ryan’s Hoard
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , October no. 51.1 2015;
— Review of Hoard 2015 selected work poetry -
Found in Translation
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 16-17 January 2016; (p. 19)
— Review of Selected Poems from Les Fleurs Du Mal Jan Owen (translator), 2015 selected work poetry ; The Offhand Angel : New and Selected Poems 2015 selected work poetry ; Hoard 2015 selected work poetry -
Chloe Wilson Reviews Tracy Ryan and Jill Jones
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , no. 53.0 2016;
— Review of Hoard 2015 selected work poetry ; Breaking the Days 2015 selected work poetry -
[Review] Jill Jones, Breaking the Days [and] Trayc Ryan, Hoard
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 9 no. 1 2016;
— Review of Breaking the Days 2015 selected work poetry ; Hoard 2015 selected work poetry -
A Review of Tracy Ryan’s Hoard and Jan Napier’s Thylacine
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly : Walking with the Flaneur 2016; (p. 108-111)
— Review of Hoard 2015 selected work poetry ; Thylacine 2015 selected work poetry -
Bog Poetics : Tracy Ryan and Seamus Heaney
2021
single work
essay
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , October vol. 40 no. 3 2021; (p. 57-59) 'Tracy Ryan’s 2015 poetry collection, Hoard, muses upon the bogs of the poet’s ancestral Ireland. In doing so, Ryan engages knowingly with a landscape already excavated and embraced in poetry, as Seamus Heaney repeatedly wrote about bogs and bog bodies, heeding a call to ‘Lie down / in the word-hoard’ (1992: 11). A bog, as Ryan explains in a note at the end of the collection, ‘is a kind of wetland, like a sponge full of water, composed of peat – dead, partly decayed plant matter built up over great lengths of time . . . These conditions mean that things found in bogs are often near-perfectly preserved – from ancient hoards of tools and jewellery to actual human bodies’ (2015: 49). A bog is thus an amalgamation of disparate temporalities and materialities. Organic and inorganic matter, water, earth and plant matter create an acidic environment deprived of oxygen, in which human and animal bodies, medieval weapons, bronze age collars, Victorian boots, and modern rubbish can co-exist silently, hidden. Bogs are thus uniquely illustrative examples of what Serenella Iovino and Serpil Oppermann call ‘storied matter’: ‘a material “mesh” of meanings, properties, and processes, in which human and nonhuman players are interlocked in networks that produce undeniable signifying forces’ (2014: 1-2). While for Iovino and Oppermann, all matter is storied, for poets such as Ryan and Heaney, the stories encased and layered in bogs are particularly enticing.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2014 joint winner The Whitmore Press Manuscript Prize
Last amended 10 Sep 2015 15:56:37
