“The voice of this well sustained and consistently strong collection is unusually urban. Cosmopolitan in the real sense of the word; its strength is in its landscape and structure. Starting with a variant of the Shipping News and weaving through locations like Athlone; Connolly Station, Dublin; Berlin, and Russia, the writer shows his ability to make each place his own as he brings the reader through his multi-faceted world of imagination and place.”

Joseph Woods, Director, Poetry Ireland

“Like all true poets, Alan Jude Moore is galvanised into urgent poetic utterance by everything that strikes upon his highly tuned sensitivity. His is a precise, energetic, inclusive vision, married to an excellent sureness and spontaneity of voice. Black State Cars demonstrates both how devotedly and scrupulously Moore controls his emotions in the interests of authentic poetic expression, and his power in channelling those very emotions with an understanding and refinement that is both imposingly faithful and memorably elegiac.

I recommend this collection unreservedly.”

Michael Wynne, The Stinging Fly

St. Jude’s Poem

Media and prayers have infiltrated your hopelessness
They do not claim to understand
They see you standing on burning balconies
in silence with your honour in rags beside you
But you keep close the grace of despair and the comfort
of priests
You embrace any cold glass case
Your honour necessitates petitions of burning cities

One day you will be torn from it
in a laneway where death runs like a bull
Then at least you’ll get a rose between your teeth

And you’ll know how to use a flower
when the time comes

 

 

Black State Cars can be ordered from Salmon Poetry, Amazon or other bookstores. E-book is also available on Kindle.