Press and reviews
"Dignified, moving and sure…what has been a curse in life turns out to be a gift on the page { in } Ellen Cranitch’s courageous second collection…What impresses most is her steady rigour in not compromising, not ranting or taking flight…There is, throughout, a – crystal – clarity."
Kate Kellaway
The Observer
"Beautifully rendered, well-seen, rich in clinching details."
Declan Ryan
The Irish Times
"Ellen Cranitch’s astonishingly powerful @BloodaxeBooks collection Crystal, about a partner’s addiction, is stunning."
Ian McMillan
"Tender and profound…honest and brave…propelled by a faith in the humane, in the redemptive possibilities of love… Crystal…adds to that library that attests to the human spirit’s ability to witness and endure and, sometimes at least, come out singing."
Hisham Matar
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return
"Utterly mesmerising. An intensely rewarding and spine-tingling experience. What pain underlies it is mitigated by so much love, rescue, hope and triumph. Only a real poet can take one from a walk with Cavafy amongst the stones of the Acropolis to the misery of Heston motorway services; from Colombian emerald mines to communing with T.S. Eliot’s ashes in East Coker… Cranitch takes the resources of landscape, science, philosophy, mythology and of course poetry and uses them not just to meditate on the cruel, sordid, terrifying and humiliating truths of addiction, but to do something more than meditate – to understand, to resolve and to transform. This is what poetry at its best and truest can do. A wonderful achievement."
Stephen Fry
"Crystal is certainly the most gripping collection of poetry I have ever read. Love, thought and writing transcending all, in one slim volume. Individual poems will break your heart and your admiration for the determination to turn all this into art will never diminish."
Nick Hornby
On his Substack, A Fan's Notes
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