{"product_id":"jiving-with-wasps-new-selected-poems","title":"Jiving with Wasps: New \u0026 Selected Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eRita Ann Higgins has spent four decades writing about Galway kitchens, bus routes and welfare offices with a comic timing that turns sharp. This retrospective gathers that work in one volume.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReadical Key Points\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNew and selected poems chosen from a dozen books published over four decades, from \u003cem\u003eGoddess on the Mervue Bus\u003c\/em\u003e (1986) to \u003cem\u003eThe Long Weekend\u003c\/em\u003e (2024), plus new work\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSubjects include family, women's lives, work, money and power\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePaperback, 352 pages, Bloodaxe Books, 2026\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHiggins writes in plain, spoken language, often in the voices of the people her poems watch: neighbors, clerks, mothers, officials. The jokes arrive fast and the anger underneath them arrives a line later. Across the selections, the poems follow working-class and women's lives in the west of Ireland and ask who gets heard, who gets ignored and what it costs to talk back.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA single volume of this size lets readers follow the voice from its first book through its most recent, then into the new poems. It suits readers of contemporary Irish poetry, of political and social verse, and of poets who use humor as a way in rather than a way out. The comic timing of the first book is still here, and so is the edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBorn in Galway in 1955, Rita Ann Higgins has published poetry and prose with Bloodaxe and Salmon Press, and has also written plays, among them \u003cem\u003eThe Plastic Bag\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Colossal Longing of Julie Connors\u003c\/em\u003e. Her awards include the Peadar O'Donnell Award (1989) and the Living Poets Society Award (2021), and she belongs to Aosdána.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCondition:\u003c\/strong\u003e Brand New and Readical Ready.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReadical™ is an independent bookstore and reading-products brand built around a simple idea: books matter most when what we learn leaves the page and enters our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eApply the Page. Get Readical™.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloodaxe Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48026719748245,"sku":"NEW-ING-1780377649","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0800\/5861\/3909\/files\/upload-1789784919263.jpg?v=1789784920","url":"https:\/\/readical.com\/products\/jiving-with-wasps-new-selected-poems","provider":"Readical","version":"1.0","type":"link"}