I cannot reccomend Ni Dhomhnaill's work highly enough. She is continuing in the tradition established by women like Eavan Boland, Peig Sayers, and Medbh McGuckian--teaching the world that Irish women can write with a beauty and an intensity that must not--and cannot--be overshadowed by their male colleagues. I first read Ni Dhomhnaill in a class in grad school, and have continued to read her work constantly. Her poems are well grounded in the technique of true poetry, and her gift for her native Irish shines through each work. For those readers who haven't had the luxury to learn Irish, the poems in her volumes are translated by some of the most talented Irish poets alive--Seamus Heaney, Medbh McGuckian, John Montague, and Paul Durcan have all lent a hand in the translations. The work itself is steeped in Irish mythology, which Ni Dhomhnaill understands and alludes to deftly, but without overpowering sentimentality. Some shining examples of her talent that appear in the volume are "The Language Issue," "Blodewedd," "Aubade," and "Island." Ni Dhomhnaill is sure to prove herself one of the great writers of the era.

The Water Horse is a collection of fabulous Gaelic poetry ably translated for an English reading audience and laced with the power of myth from beginning to end. This bi-lingual collection (Gaelic on the left/English on the right) is an enthusiastically recommended acquisition for academic poetry collections, and will very aptly serve to introduce the reading public to an undeniable modern Irish poetry with an antiquarian bard's feeling for language and imagery. Eithne The Hun: The earliest woman to be cited/in that might tome of Keating--/The Growth of Learning in Ireland--/figured children were for eating.//She'd been fostered out, seemingly,/with the Decies tribe of Munster/who reared her on a diet/of the fatted flesh of youngsters//so as to bring on her menarche/before she was well ready/and get land they were promised/out of the blade who might wed her://but the lamb must still be waiting/to be led to the altar/by the mess they've just made/of those three in Gibraltar.

The Dark Side of women is the idea behind this collection of poems. The authors dark side is what the book is all about. Shw tells us there is a dark side to every women. We see this in the book in the form of the Cailleach. The book tells us of the poets journey through her psyche. She goes through different stages, that of her dark side and her good side and in the end she reaches her perfct state the Speirbhean. In the poem Slad we see that because of the actions of the dark side the good suffers..............