Tanya

Juicy models of lyrical reasoning, [Shaughnessy’s poems] bring together wordplay and rhetoric… The poems have a fertile restlessness. They don’t settle into epiphanies but continue layering, swerving, branching, reconsidering… Her vibrant dives into the possibilities of [the self] invest it with multitudes… In the Shaughnessy multiverse, everything contains everything else, or has that capacity… Femaleness and iterations of feminism provide a framework for Tanya. The collection can be seen in part as a version of midlife stock-taking, via odes to women artists, mentors, lovers, frenemies and former selves… Shaughnessy [traces] her own derivation and education through myriad mothers, stretching definitions of “mother” to include frictions, crushes, heartbreaks and inspirations that became part of her DNA… Chief among the new book’s many subjects are love, absence and loss: how to live with or without them… [Shaughnessy] writes about love as being “timelessness itself”. This is a book in which the poet’s ability “to imagine and to wonder / fiercely” never flags. -- Amy Gerstler * New York Times *
A probing, richly rendered collection of poems… a reflection on women artists as friends, mentors, and influencers… Shaughnessy relentlessly sifts and shifts through our image making, seeking clarity while recognising that life is "not a straight story or a jagged line". Meanwhile, she celebrates the eponymous Tanya, wanting to ‘repair the path between us'. A remarkable book achieving all its ambitions. * Library Journal (starred review) *
Liquid Flesh: New & Selected Poems is a terrific and substantial introduction to Shaughnessy’s world – sensual, subversive, forever dancing around a series of hyper-aware ludic questions. -- Martina Evans * The Irish Times *