Edward O’Dwyer: Exquisite Prisons

Salmon Poetry podcast

“Edward O’Dwyer’s poems in Exquisite Prisons pack the quotidian with a creeping terror; motorists nervously migrate to investigate the car stalled at the lights, a father is filmed throwing his child higher and higher, a husband wonders if his wife also fantasises about killing him. These poems are savagely ironic, authoritative and delivered in an unsettling coaxing voice that occupies that same dazzling imaginative territory as Shirley Jackson in The Lottery.” Eleanor Hooker

“These are poems which explore the preciousness and unreliability of what we think of as 'the present'. They often unpick fleeting moments, but their impact is enduring. Highly recommended.” Helen Mort

“In Exquisite Prisons, Edward O’Dwyer considers the reasons people need other people: to validate, reflect, desire, resist, and mourn. These poems are surreal, sneakily funny and unashamedly sad. The images will stay with you. O’Dwyer’s poetic voice is utterly contemporary and the poems have a wittily executed lightness of touch which charms the reader.” Susan Millar DuMars & Kevin Higgins

Edward O’Dwyer is a secondary school teacher, poet and fiction writer from Limerick, Ireland. He has published three collections of poetry with Salmon, most recently Exquisite Prisons which appeared in 2022. It followed The Rain on Cruise’s Street (2014), which was Highly Commended in the Forward Prizes, and Bad News, Good News, Bad News (2017), which contains the poem, ‘The Whole History of Dancing’, winner of the Best Original Poem award from Eigse Michael Hartnett Festival 2018. He has represented Ireland at Poesiefestival, Berlin, for their European ‘renshi’ project. He took part in Poetry Ireland’s Introductions Series, and has been shortlisted for a Hennessy Award for Emerging Poetry. His first short story collection, Cheat Sheets, was published by Truth Serum Press in 2018 and features on The Lonely Crowd journal’s ‘Best Books of 2018’ list. His poems and stories have been published in journals and anthologies around the world, both digitally and in print. He is the current Poet Laureate of Adare, Limerick, named by Poetry Ireland as part of their Poetry Town initiative.