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The Weight of a Feather - by Stephanie Ní Thiarnaigh (Paperback)
About this item
Highlights
- Inspired by the harrowing events surrounding the often overlooked Ballymurphy Massacre in the north of Ireland, Stephanie Ní Thiarnaigh's powerful poetry collection, The Weight of a Feather, delves into the depths of truth and justice.
- Author(s): Stephanie Ní Thiarnaigh
- 82 Pages
- Poetry, Subjects & Themes
Description
About the Book
Inspired by the harrowing events surrounding the often overlooked Ballymurphy Massacre in the north of Ireland, Stephanie Ní Thiarnaigh's powerful poetry collection The Weight of a Feather delves into the depths of truth and justice.
Book Synopsis
Inspired by the harrowing events surrounding the often overlooked Ballymurphy Massacre in the north of Ireland, Stephanie Ní Thiarnaigh's powerful poetry collection, The Weight of a Feather, delves into the depths of truth and justice. In 2021, an inquest in Belfast finally shed light on these tragic deaths, revealing the families' nearly five-decade struggle for justice amidst persistent disinformation and propaganda from the British military. The title of this collection echoes an ancient Egyptian belief: upon death, a person's heart, symbolizing their life's deeds, was weighed against the feather of Maat, the goddess of truth and justice. This concept weaves through the poems, urging readers to reflect on the nature of truth and to weigh the evidence, consider the human cost of conflict, and make their own judgments.
Review Quotes
Incisive and devastating, this is a vital, mesmerising and necessary study into a hidden history. The complexity and inventiveness refuses to be alienating and showcases a new potential of what poetry can bring to historical and political events. A masterful work that stays with you long after reading.
- Ciarán Hodgers
There are ways in which art and the artist can more adequately capture and convey history, collective trauma, and deep feeling than simple record keeping. Ní Thiarnaigh, through poetry that has striking clarity and surrealist beauty, delicately weaves the dark truth of the past with the reality of its unresolved impacts. Innovations in form combine with gut-punching revelations, leaving readers both tender and confronted. The Weight of a Feather is all at once gorgeous, haunting, heartbreaking, and necessary.
- Abhainn Connolly
The Weight of a Feather cuts to the sinew of the 1971 Ballymurphy massacre. Bearing witness to work a poet less profound would shy away from.
- Lauren Foley