In Terry McDonagh's Fourth Floor Flat, the reader is
invited into the freewheeling mind of a writer sharing his
houseful of thoughts' from his upstairs vantage point.'
I flick through day and dark', he tells us. With a lightness
of touch underpinned by McDonagh's deep joy in
language, we become enthralled by the wide-ranging
meanderings of a questing, restless imagination. - Geraldine Mitchell
This is a book of wonderful craft and energy. Terry
McDonagh draws on moments of keen insight and
humanity and melds them in vibrant, imaginative and
profound language. - Austin Vaughan
In this relentless roller coaster of images McDonagh
pulls off a brave commentary from his fourth floor flat
juxtaposing the urban contemporary with the Mayo of
his youth. No sacred cows are safe as the absurd and
surreal are seamlessly blended allowing Hamburg and
Kiltimagh to be effortlessly thrown into the same mix.
McDonagh is primarily a poet of displacement and,
considering the flux around us today, perhaps he is the
one we should be reading. - Ger Reidy
Terry McDonagh, from Cill Aodáin, Kiltimagh, lives in Mayo
and in Germany. His poetry collections include: The Road Out,
A World Without Stone; Boxes; A Song for Joanna; Cill Aodáin and
Nowhere Else; In the Light of Bridges - Hamburg Fragments; The
Truth in Mustard; Ripple Effect; Echolocation; Lady Cassie
Peregrina.
Terry taught English at the University of Hamburg, was
Drama Director at the International School Hamburg for 15
years and has facilitated residencies in Europe, Asia and
Australia. His poem, 'Out of the Dying Pan into the Pyre',
was longlisted for The Poetry Society poetry prize 2015 and
'From a Hauptbahnhof Café in Berlin' was highly
commended in the Gregory O'Donoghue prize 2016.
In 2017 he was Artistic Director of WestWords, Germany's
first Irish literature festival in Hamburg. He's been narrator
and acting acting voice in several RTE Junior dramas. Twelve of his
poems have been put to music for voice and string quartet by
the late composer Eberhard Reichel in Hamburg. He has been
featured in the newspaper, Hamburger Abendblatt and on
German radio and TV on many occasions
Other books include: I wanted to bring you Flowers/ich kann das
alles Erklaeren (drama) - Fischer Aachen; One Summer in
Ireland (fiction) ~ Klett Stuttgart; Elbe Letters go West/Briefe von
der Elbe - Blaupause; Michel the Merman, a story for young
people based on Hamburg legends (illustrated by Mark
Barnes NZ) - BOD Hamburg; Tiada Tempat di Rawa
(translation into Indonesian); Kiltimagh - Blaupause
(translation into German by poet Mirko Bonné)