In addition to this chapbook, the author has published five collections of poetry with The Gallery Press, Ireland, the most recent of which is Only This Room, 2009. A volume of her Selected Poems is forthcoming from the Bloodaxe Press and the Gallery Press. She has also written two novels, both of which have been published in the USA by Little, Brown.

She has won many prizes, including the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry, University of St Thomas, Minnesota; the Michael Hartnett Award; the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Award for Poetry; the Cardiff International Award, the Brendan Kennelly Award, the Ver Poets Prize, the Phras Open Poetry Prize; the Friends Provident/National Poetry Prize [Ireland]; the Bournemouth International Prize; the Women's National Poetry Prize [Ireland]; the Sheffield Thursday Prize; the Michael Bruce Memorial Prize; the Observer/Arvon Prize; the Peterloo Prize, the Poetry Business Prize, the New Writer Prize. She has also been a joint-winner of a Hennessy Award for Poetry.

Until this chapbook, her work has appeared in journals and magazines in the U.S., but has been available to students only in The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poetry, 1999, [Wake Forest, University Press, USA] edited by Peggy O'Brien. A new edition of this book is forthcoming and contains a selection from all five collections. The author wishes to thank Peggy O'Brien for introducing her to a U.S audience.

The fine cover photograph was taken by Alan Counihan and formed part of the ‘Townlands’ Exhibition 2009 in Johnswell, Co. Kilkenny.