Looking For Ireland: An Irish-Appalachian Pilgrimage

Author(s): Laura Treacy Bentley

Location(s): Ireland, Appalachian Mountains

Genre(s): Travelogue, Nonfiction

Era(s): Contemporary

Journey from Appalachia to Ireland in Looking For Ireland: An Irish-Appalachian Pilgrimage. Both chapbook and a work of art, her book creates a seamless alchemy of elegant poems and stunning photographs.

“In one of the poems in her luminous new collection, Laura Bentley advises the reader to find a forked branch and let it lead ‘to places you’ve never been.’ That is just what these brief, compelling poems do: They reveal fresh landscapes of thought and feeling. In our rushed and muddled world, Bentley’s meditative poems are like breathing spaces
— elegant, clarifying, assured.” ~Julia Keller, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sorrow Road (USA)

“You are holding in your hand a thing of beauty. Here, indeed, Laura Treacy Bentley makes ‘words flicker like flame.’ The imagery of the poems is married to stunning photographs forming a perfect balance. You will be taken seamlessly on a visual and poetic journey from Appalachia to Ireland, ‘to the fuchsia that bleeds on Inish Mor’ and ‘Blackbirds seed the summer clouds’ and back again. This is a work of art that achieves what the poet/photographer strives for, ‘to capture wild beauty before it takes flight.’” ~Tony O’Dwyer, co-editor of Crannóg magazine (Galway, Ireland)

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Laura Treacy Bentley is a poet, novelist, point-and-shoot photographer, and West Virginia native whose work has been widely published in the United States and Ireland. She is the author of a poetry collection: Lake Effect (2006), a psychological thriller set in Ireland: The Silver Tattoo (2013), and a short story prequel: Night Terrors (2015).

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