Book reviews: Tongulish and In A Hare’s Eye

GALWAY-based poet, Rita Ann Higgins, has written a poetry collection (her tenth) that never bores. 

She can be spiky, sardonic, humorous and bawdy as well as capable of turning her pen to searing social commentary in a way that is surprising.

‘Costa Del Dento’ is about a guy “making the girls laugh” on holidays. On the dole at home, he has a claim “against the corpo” for a very unlikely accident. However, compared to the Christian Brothers, who stole his childhood, knocking out his milk teeth with their violence, he is harmless.