Cherry Smyth is a poet, critic and curator, born in Ireland, based in London.

Her latest poetry collection, 'One Wanted Thing' is available from Lagan Press. The title poem of this collection was nominated for the Forward Best Poem of the Year 2004, and "carries all Smyth's hallmarks: precision, linguistic inventiveness and joy" The Irish Times, 2007.

Cherry writes regularly for Art Monthly, Modern Painters, Circa and Art Review. She was a curatorial adviser for Axis online showcase, Open Frequency in 2006.

She is the poetry editor of Brand literary magazine and has been teaching writing poetry in the Creative Writing Department of the University of Greenwich since 2004.

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27th September, 2008
Cherry will be reading from new work as part of the Aspects Literature Festival in Bangor, Northern Ireland on Sunday September 27th at 7pm.
Please see www.northdown.gov.uk for further details.

News and Reviews :
Cherry Smyth's long poem 'Wishbone' was recently commended in the Writers Inc. Competition 2008.
See www.writersinc-london.org.uk/competition.html

Her latest collection 'One Wanted Thing' was reviewed in Magma, Summer 2008:
'Cherry Smyth's second full collection makes the word "careful" a compliment. You are in the hands of an expert conductor of moment. Fair and Lovely, for example, negotiates a tourist on the Madras Mail train through the hazards of the "other" (Indian women in saris), culturally induced self-hate (skin lightening) and gender discomfort ("the new view/ my jeans, my cropped hair, impossibly male") without faltering. This constant care leads her to an original and subtle art: a capacity to note those times when the indistinguishable (or the slipping together of separate things) is itself the definition. Lacan's Idea of Love shows this in a marvellous phrase: "the belonging a bird has with a tree"....There are few weak poems in this book. Smyth's intelligence strengthens all her work.'
Claire Crowther

Another review appeared in The North, Issue 41:
'Cherry Smyth's range of form and subject matter is impressive and there is vigour and excitement in this her second full collection which takes us from Dubrovnic to Ireland, from London to India. There are love poems, poems about sexuality, cancer, car accidents, travel, language, politics, war. Though the majority are free verse there are also skillfully handled haiku, an effective villanelle and a particularly lovely sonnet.
One of my favourites was the sequence Destination: Sleep in which Smyth demonstrates her facility with metaphor. There are some stunning images in this closely observed piece. "A girl's head lolls on an elastic neck,/ then rips up with a force seen in torturers".
These are clear-sighted, unflinching poems from a writer with a gift for the surprising image. A lovely book.'
Carole Bromley

New work has been selected for a new anthology from Salmon Press, '24 Contemporary Irish Poets', edited by Joan McBreen due out in May 2009.

Cherry Smyth's poem 'Dunfanaghy, 2002' has been selected for 'Best of Irish Poetry 2008', edited by Thomas McCarthy and Brid Ni Mhorain, Southword Editions, 2007.
Available at €12 post-free from www.munsterlit.ie

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