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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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Test, Orange is available from Pindrop Press at £9.99 www.pindroppress.com
Large Glass is next to Caledonian Road Overground; bus 91, 259 or 17 from King’s Cross, 10 mins walk from Highbury & Islington www.largeglass.co.uk T:020 7609 9345
Cherry Smyth has been commended in the Gregory O'Donoghue Poetry Competition, 2010. Read the winning poem 'Return to the Figure' at: www.munsterlit.ie
Cherry Smyth's collection ‘One Wanted Thing’ has been reviewed by Angela Gardner in foam:e magazine:
‘Cherry Smyth’s poetry not only values the abstract but often contemplates the valuing of self….She is uncompromising in her use of her chosen subject matter, often unflinching in her language… Smyth brings her experience as art critic and curator to her work as a poet. Three poems in particular within the book, ‘Shine on Sarah Lucas’, ‘Human Image’ , ‘Presence of Mind’ engage, across disciplines and beyond an easy ekphrasis, at a serious and informed level with issues in contemporary visual art.
….often her best work comes from dangerous places where lives are on the line: the aftermath of her parents serious road accident or waiting at the Nablus checkpoint between Palestine and Israel on Machsom Watch. Serious subjects that are given serious attention.
Throughout the book Cherry Smyth reminds us of the ‘bright anomaly’ that is poetry. How it makes us present, informs a life. Continue reading here: www.greendoorwebsites.com
See new poems and an interview with foam:e magazine at:
http://www.greendoorwebsites.com/clients/foame/Issue7/poems/Irish/smyth.html
http://www.greendoorwebsites.com/clients/foame/Issue7/interviews/interview2.html
Cherry Smyth has three new poems in the new issue of Succour, Issue 10, Autumn, Winter.
Cherry has new poems and an essay featured in 'The Watchful Heart: a new generation of Irish poets', edited by Joan McBreen, Salmon Press, launched at Listowel Writers' Week in Kerry, May 2009.
A new poem by Cherry Smyth titled 'Back to Back' can now be seen on www.toddswift.blogspot.com (February 2009)
Cherry's poem 'Wishbone' was published in 'The Long Poem Magazine' in December 2008.
Her short story 'Absorb' has been published online at www.thesocietyforcuriousthought.com
Cherry Smyth's long poem 'Wishbone' was recently commended in the Writers Inc. Competition 2008.
See http://writers-ink-london.com/
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
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 Dubrovnik 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
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