the ghost maze - Michael Egan

“Narratives criss-cross in this extraordinary poem: bridges collapse, tunnels tunnel. This is a text in which space is not shared between its characters: touch is not intimacy. Godless faith falters between sudden speech and lasting silence. Disillusion abounds, but illumination too, as small details offer occasional beauty, an extraordinary complexity between the simple phrases that are arranged here for pulling us, pulsing us, though this maze. More and more, I’m amazed by this maze.”
Robert Sheppard

“The objective verity of ghosts is not relevant in poetry. If you feel something is there, in your kitchen, at 2am, then you’ve been haunted enough to read this startling, graceful, intelligent, intransigent long poem as book by Michael Egan. It is a celebration of the tradgic, of giving away one’s bones, of climbing stairs and self-deception, and knowing less with each passing year, and the love we have for the dead as we know them now.”
SJ Fowler