About the Book:

"Her poems are engaging, personable, charming, unexpectedly sharp. Such bladed charm is particularly apparent in her portrait poetry. With an ease, a non-judgemental clarity and
a hard-won, even Wordsworthian simplicity, she takes us into the lives of different individuals, and she can whip up a powerful unease too..." - Ali Smith, The Glasgow Herald

"When the Lights Go Up is a stunning book: accessible, evocative and finely wrought. Whether you're looking for poetry, politics or pure passion, this book comes highly recommended." - Patience Agbabi, Diva Magazine

"Smyth's tone is clear-eyed, precise and experienced in the ways of the emotions. And there
is also, more subtly, a sense of sustaining satisfaction at having worked her way into being able to flex and explore her voices." - Patricia Prime, New Hope International Review

'Then comes floating,
skin a guest of air.
I hold my palms just beneath
the surface, plying the tension
as if they could lift the water up
and it would not break, like love should be,
elastic, fluent, so familiar,
you can't tell if you're in it or out of it.'
- from 'Water'

Cherry Smyth's outstanding second collection, One Wanted Thing, shows a poet coming into a true voice. Her poems give imaginative room for an intriguing array of delicately shifting sensibilities.

Whether writing of love, friendship, the conflict between the ideal and reality or the search for physical, moral and emotional beauty, Smyth comes to the task armed with a formidable poetic arsenal: anger, a wry humour, a self-reflective sense of doubt, an insight into the psyche of others, a belief in the power of the word.

About the Author:

Cherry Smyth is an Irish writer, living in London. Her debut collection, When the Lights
Go Up was published by Lagan Press, 2001. Her anthology of women prisoners' writing, A
Strong Voice in a Small Space (Cherry Picking Press, 2002), won the Raymond Williams
Community Publishing Award in 2003.
She has also been published in recent anthologies of new Irish poetry, Breaking the Skin (Black Mountain Press, 2002), and Magnetic North (Verbal Arts Centre, 2006). A pamphlet,
The Future of Something Delicate, was published by Smith/Doorstop,2005.