The Curse

‘As I write the curse, my daughter turns inside me like a root shifting underground, carving a path through tonnes of soil and rock, cracking the paving stones. I send the curse speeding through the ether to its target. I feel, for the first time in a long time, emptied of hornets.’

Essay Issue 48: Summer 2023

Citizens’ Assembly

Poetry Issue 37, Volume 2: Winter 2017-18

Black Horse of the Liberties

Poetry Issue 14, Volume 2: Winter 2009

Jessica Traynor

Jessica Traynor’s third collection Pit Lullabies (Bloodaxe, 2022) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Essays have appeared in Running Feet, Sharp Noses (PVA), Tolka, Winter Papers, and The Dublin Review. She is the 2023 Arts Council Writer in Residence at the University of Galway.