Released 31st December, 2023 // 66 pages // 978-1-915760-52-4 // RRP £9.99
 
Alicia Byrne Keane’s Pretend Cartoon Strength is a meditation on coastlines, migration, spatial theory, and desire among apocalyptic times. Meandering through confined communal living spaces and ethereal winter shores, these poems are both unnerving and poignant, and bear witness to the quiet terrors of being alive. Byrne Keane presents a restless and evolving consciousness fixated on the uncertainties of modern existence, while also referencing Dublin's housing woes, Nokia games, and 2016 makeup trends. This is a book that asks for a place in our homes and our bodies, and one that offers many.
 
ABOUT Alicia Byrne Keane:
Alicia Byrne Keane is a poet from Dublin, with work published in The Moth, Banshee, The Stinging Fly, Boulevard, Stand, Acumen, Anthropocene, and The Colorado Review, among other journals. Alicia’s poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best New Poets Anthology and the Best of the Net Anthology. In May 2023, Alicia was selected for Ireland’s National Mentoring Programme.