At the Edge of the Western Wave

"What I love about this collection is that it catches perfectly that special sense of rural Ireland which might be described as mixture of raw satirical humour, tragedy, and a kind of yearning for love and connection in a society that feels a constant tension between materialism and spirituality. At the Edge of the Western Wave is a big and sweeping enough collection to be able to accomodate these themes and their nuances: I'm constantly amazed at the way in which Reyes can present a small detail—-a shop—front, a wink of light, an Hiberno—English phrase, a name, a place name—-and evoke a whole way of life. What's even more important, though, is that there's a clear sense of Reyes as a poet making his way through the shoals of Irish sensibility, first as a stranger with a stranger's alert, even amazed, eye, but later as someone who has become strangely at home in the west of Ireland, but still not losing his alertness for the lyricism of the quotidian. This is a very impressive book."—Ger Killeen