The Herring Lass by Michelle Cahill

Sarah Holland-Bhatt writes:

“Michelle Cahill’s characteristically bold and restless poems in The Herring Lass migrate across continents and vast bodies of water, fearlessly interrogating dynamics of power and subjugation in both human and animal worlds, always striking against the tyranny and subjugation of  the ‘desiccating colonies’ with a supple intellect and graceful musicality. Cahill fossicks through the detritus of language with a bowerbird’s gleaming eye, producing a powerful and muscular lexicon that is hers alone, while always guarding against language’s capacity to oppress and wound. The resulting poems are richly lyrical, intelligent and incisive. Cahill’s elegant and memorable critiques of the forces that impinge upon our freedoms have never felt more urgent or necessary.”