Book of Water, the PB

John Murphy's first collection finely balances the lyrical and the metaphysical in poems that are rooted in the extraordinary transformations of ordinary lives. The voice is distinctly urban and European in tone. His themes include the economic crisis, fatherhood, illness, marriage and divorce, chronic pain, and the inevitable flux and uncertainty of the 21st century. An ex-Olympic-style wrestler and current professor of computer science, Murphy could break your arm, but chooses to break your heart, in that near impossible way that only the very best poets can.