Alvy Carragher Poetry & Books
Launching October 15th 2026:
The Only Fear I've Ever Had is Standing Still
In Alvy Carragher’s fourth collection a questioning voice moves between continents and through the fractured landscapes of memory. Poems ask how we continue after a difficult childhood, and how a life might be understood when the past resists any single, coherent narrative. In work that wonders why ‘some days get printed / on the heart’ the poet touches on survival and departure and on how we might go on.
Family is both refuge and source of harm, and father figures cast long shadows over these pages. Generations carry the effects of silence, mental illness and inherited violence, yet the poems remain open to the wider world and to the possibility of kindness. In lines where ‘love [is] like a teaspoon scooping the sun / from a soft-boiled egg’ moments of tenderness become a way of enduring. Energetic, expansive, and empathetic, this courageous book is as disquieting as it is consoling.
About Alvy
Alvy Carragher’s fourth poetry collection, The Only Fear I’ve Ever Had Is Standing Still (The Gallery Press, 2026), follows on from What Remains the Same (The Gallery Press, 2024), which was shortlisted for the Farmgate National Poetry Award. Her work has been recognised with the Eavan Boland Award and has received the support of several Arts Council Literature Bursary Awards. She has recently won both the David Whyte Residency Award and the Listowel Writers' Week Single Poem Award. She has an MA in Writing from the University of Galway, where she has occasionally returned to teach poetry.
Born in Galway City, Alvy spent much of her early childhood in Portumna, County Galway, before moving to Birdhill, County Tipperary, for her teenage years. She has been a resident in a number of other places, including Louisiana (USA), Goheung (South Korea), Vancouver and Toronto (Canada). She currently lives in Dublin.
Listen to Some Poems
A selection of videos from a series of readings for the National Poetry Archive, as well as some short videos recorded for the launch of her third poetry collection What Remains the Same. You can find plenty more readings by searching on YouTube.
