POETRY

TONGUES OF FIRE (2020)

**WINNER OF THE LAUREL PRIZE**

**Shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020**

**Shortlisted for the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize 2021**

**Shortlisted for Dalkey Literary Award (Emerging Writer) 2021**

**A Spectator Book of the Year**

**A Guardian Book of the Year**

**An Attitude Book of the Year**

**An Irish Times Book of the Year**

**An Irish Independent Book of the Year**

**Poetry Book Society Recommendation**

**Observer Poetry Book of the Month**

Reviews:

'Seán Hewitt soars [...] His poetry will stand the test of time. [...] Hewitt seems to have sprung fully formed into the literary world and, on this showing, nothing seems beyond him.'

- The Sunday Times

'If Keats's famous adage that beauty is truth rings false to modern ears, Seán Hewitt's collection of exquisite lyrics gives us hope. This debut manages to enchant the reader with poems that read almost as spells, prayers and incantations, paying an almost religious attention to the nature world. [...] vertiginous, dreamlike'

- The Guardian

'an exquisitely calm and insightful lyric poet, reverential in nature and gorgeously wise in the field of human drama'

- Max Porter, The Irish Times *Best Books of 2020*

'Seldom does a widely praised debut so fully warrant the hyperbole surrounding it as Tongues of Fire, which gathers about itself critical verbiage like "important", "tour-de-force", and "triumph", bearing each with grace. I felt myself in the company of genuine greatness...'

- Poetry Ireland Review

'It is extraordinary to encounter a debut collection that feels as established as Seán Hewitt's [...] These unmediated poems are, at the same time, charged: they pull you in swiftly, you become immersed. [...] Exceptionally moving... impossible to read without a lump in the throat.'

- The Observer *Poetry Book of the Month*

'Tongues of Fire gracefully ambushes the sacramental with experiences of the sensuous natural world. [...] The consistency of the effect, unusual in a first book, communicates a distinct, developed mythopoeia.'

- The Irish Times

'Burning with a spiritual intensity and near-liturgical lyricism, Hewitt's debut collection probes weighty themes with a self-assurance and lightness of touch astonishing for a first collection. Passionate, opaque and affecting, Tongues of Fire is a stunning example of the poet's art.'

- Waterstones

'In Tongues of Fire, Hewitt crafts poems of intense beauty and endless range, which glisten with queer desire [...]. Considered and poised, every line in this stunning compilation surprises and nurtures.'

- Attitude

'the most gorgeous and devastating blend of hope and loss [...] some of the most transcendent lines to ever be committed to verse. [...] This collection is a testament to life and its glorious vibrant living, to enduring love and the seemingly boundless capacity of the human soul.'

- Severine Lit