Heather Nolan

Land of the Rock Heather Nolan

A poetic exploration of place and belonging, a quest that takes the speaker across the ocean in search of identity and origin.

The speaker in the poems that form Land of the Rock: Talamh an Carraig travels through Newfoundland and Ireland looking for meaning in words, places, and behaviour. Whether the subject is tourists on Fogo Island, conversations on Inis Oírr, flora and fauna of the Burren, or accents in Waterford, Nolan translates this sensory data into a narrative of someone seeking a sense of belonging in a lost ancestral culture. In Land of the Rock, the lost utopia of Gaelic Ireland, which is interwoven through Irish writing and consciousness, is reimagined and displaced across the Atlantic.