Tom Henihan

After the Ritual continues Tom Henihan's exploration of the landscapes of displacement and sorrow. The poet finds that when home is nowhere, home is the world that moves you as you move through it.

Henihan manages to wring a vast pain and endless longing out of his lines. His talent for understatement permits no flash or trickery... Unlike other poets who select a dominant metaphor and build on it in related iterations, Henihan employs an interlokcing system of disparate metaphors that is initially daunting until a reader begins to understand that the metaphors, when taken together, are elegiac summations... The central elements of Henihan's imagery include the moon, sky, mountains, the sea, and rain. Thus, Henihan chooses very large objects and forces, rendering his poetry almost primeval.
Shane Neilson, Books in Canada

Originally from Limerick City, Ireland, Tom Henihan has lived in Canada for over twenty years. His earlier collections include Between the Streets (1992), A Mortar of Seeds (Ekstasis, 1997) and A Further Exile (Ekstasis, 2002). He currently resides in St John's, Newfoundland.