#BlogTour-‘The Woman With The Owl Tattoo’ by Anne Walsh Donnelly

About the book…

This life-affirming poetry collection reflects on the author’s growth since the ending of her marriage and what it means to unearth one’s true sexual orientation, in mid-life. Anne Walsh Donnelly’s intimate exploration of sexuality and identity is both brave and touching, marking this debut collection as a triumph.

Many thanks to the amazing Anne Cater of Random Things and the team at Fly On The Wall Poetry for my paperback copy to review as part of this blogtour.

To launch a poetry book as a first, curated ,collection is a bold and stunning move, but to launch it covering such an intimate and turbulent time of your life, as a middle age woman, is astounding.

At a time when most women are written off as no longer productive, in every sense of the word, Anne is learning to fly and really experience and embrace her sexuality.

Bold, confrontational and searing, this is a passionate and winning combination of truth, humour and sex.

To read, and witness as you do so, this unfurling of a person as she begins to live and breathe through the words of her poems is absolutely magical.

She casts aside what is expected of her, and dots the book with poems on coming out to various members of her family, documenting their reactions in a way that made me unsure as how they would have reacted to her writing about them-I would love to know!
Her burgeoning sexuality and interest in women, once dampened down and ignored, not wanting to be ‘one of them’,but not happy settling for her married life is exciting, thrilling and beautiful.

The tattoo she has to cover an ex’s name is rendered in ‘No More Fairy Tales’

‘When the tattooist finished,

the dragon had swallowed

an ex’s once indelible name.

In my story I save the princess

she tickles my balloon,palms

the basket,licks my dragn;s amber breath without guarentee

of a happy-ever-anything.’

It is an emerging of a woman from the chrysalis of heteronormative culture into a woman who reels and relishes the female form, casts off her obligations and embraces life.

I look forward to seeing how this writers command of her art translates to short stories in her forthcoming collection !

About the author…

Anne Walsh Donnelly lives in the west of Ireland. Originally from Carlow she moved to Mayo, twenty-four years ago. Her work has appeared in several publications including The Irish Times, Cránnog, Boyne Berries, The Blue Nib, Writers Forum and Dodging the Rain.

Her short stories have been shortlisted in many competitions including the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award (2014, 2016), the Fish International Prize (2015) and the RTE Radio One Frances Mac Manus competition (2014 & 2015). She won the 2018 Over the Edge Fiction Slam.

Her poems were highly commended in the Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award (2017 & 2018). She won the Winter/Spring 2017/2018 Blue Nib poetry chapbook competition and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2018. She was also nominated for the Hennessy Irish Literary Award in 2019 for her poetry.

Her debut short story collection “Demise of the Undertaker’s Wife” will be published in September 2019

Links-http://www.annewalshdonnelly.com/