BOOK LAUNCH: Back to Infinity by Rachel Stanley

Back to Infinity

by Rachel Stanley

Revival Press

Rachael Stanley currently lives in Milltown, Dublin grew up in Rathgar and went to school in St. Louis in Rathmines. From a young age, she’s always had an interest in expressing herself through the written word. Her poems have been published in Drawn to the Light Press, A New Ulster, Riposte, The Blue Nib, Live Encounters and many other journals and anthologies. She was commended twice in the Francis Ledwidge Poetry Competition. She had a short memoir piece published in the Irish Times in 2016 and some years prior to that a travel feature in U Magazine. She is a nature lover and loves to walk by her local river, the Dodder.

Rachael Stanley’s thoughtful and considered debut collection ‘Back To Infinity’ speaks to us from a hard-earned place of compassionate distance. Here is a poet who has alchemised her life experience to produce work that honours the here and now and points to what lies beyond. Whether writing about the complexity and contradictions of familial relationships, the interplay between the ego and the self, our desire for true freedom, the solace of nature or the challenges of technology, these honest and appreciative poems celebrate what it means to be fully alive, to pay attention to the god in every detail – in the midst of potato skins glistening shiny and wet. With its fresh language, range of topics and a wide variety of styles and forms, ‘Back To Infinity’ is a collection that will keep its many readers happily curled up on the sofa for hours.

— Anne Tannam, Writer in Residence, Poetry Ireland

Rachael Stanley’s first poetry collection ‘Back To Infinity’ shows a keen eye for observation. Each word is carefully chosen to clarify its perspective. We are brought on an interesting journey where hope, freedom, strength, celebration and recall are pivotal. Memories are treated with the delicacy they deserve. As with all successful poems, there is a sense of going somewhere and knowing when one has arrived.

— James Conway, Chairman and Founder, Rathmines Writers Workshop

Back To Infinity reveals Rachael Stanley as a poet on a spiritual journey to ‘shine like a window of stars’. She confronts the ambivalence of memories and experiences with a ‘magnifying glass’ and sensitively captures in nature and the domestic what it means to live ‘between two masters’. The poems have a keen sense of clarity that are always satisfying. In ‘Remembering My Father As We Approached Gethsemane’ she captures the gift of freedom found in the re-discovery of a father’s ‘innermost nature’ which opened my mind to insight and my heart to compassion.

— Marie Studer, author Real Words (Revival Press)