New Arcana

<p><b>With a cover by renowned comic book artist Lisa Sterle the poems in Jessica Traynor's <i>New Arcana</i> explore grief bad boyfriends and the power of female friendship through readings of the Tarot and Tim Burton movies.</b> </p><p>Moving from teenage friendship and destructive relationships towards a tangling with the realities of family life domesticity and desire this highly inventive collection builds into a heartbroken letter to a dear friend (personified in the poems as 'lydia deetz') who died by suicide. Interwoven with numbered poems from a newly imagined Major Arcana <i>New Arcana </i>celebrates both the holding on and the letting go. </p><p>Among other awards Jessica Traynor has received Hennessy New Writer of the Year and the Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry 2023. <i>New Arcana</i> is her fourth collection following <i>Liffey Swim</i> (2014) and <i>The Quick</i> (2019) from Dedalus and <i>Pit Lullabies</i> (2022) from Bloodaxe.</p>