Lovely Legs

by Jean O'Brien

A lively, readable collection concerned with the intricacies of relationships and the many moral contradictions of society,..they are all very clearly in O'Brien's voice, a seemingly carefree lilt which nonetheless exudes complexity and depth....Similarly, the many poems here addressed to or about O'Brien's 'younger self' attempt to civilise the unruliness of childhood, and, in a self-mythologising turn, lessons are always learnt. Often they are comically disproportionate to the experience, such as when O'Brien recalls how, as children travelling along redbrick lanes, she and her friends were approached by a pervert, a Joycean encounter which'made us remeber/to hurry home for 'tea. Val Nolan Poetry Ireland Review 98, 2009. In a book with such a breezy title, bright cover and light tone throughout there’s a much more serious and complex undercurrent at work. Paul Perry Irish Times, May '09