Here is a selection of reviews of Moira's work
Faced with a potentially dismaying medical condition, these poems handle it with courage and candour, step by step. They are proof of poetry's ability to accompany us in such challenges, to tread a difficult path with balance, wit and grace. Most movingly, they map a way, inviting us to follow, through to an arresting tenderness.
In these deftly-constructed poems Moira Andrew grieves for the gradual loss of her sight, inviting us to take a closer look at the world we take for granted. Without self-pity she examines her predicament through memory, everyday encounters and dreams, using her gifts as a lucid and plain-speaking poet to illuminate the experience.
This outstanding new book of poems shows Moira Andrew at the peak of her poetic powers as she casts an unerring eye over contemporary life, relationships, love (and physical love), and nature. There is great tenderness here as she speaks with confidence and clarity in poem after poem that seems to materialise magically on the page. Geese and Daughters is a treat, rich in language, easy on the ear, personal - yet filled with shared experience and honed to perfection.
Breakfast with Swallows is Moira Andrew at her sensual best – nature, music, family, sex; all observed with the sharp eye and ready wit that Moira has in dollops. She knows who she is and has the confidence to tell you, laying a trail with beautiful views and intriguing people. This book is a feast and you’ll want a long breakfast.
Honest, erotic, tender and humorous, Moira Andrew’s poetry gives a telling insight into a woman’s passions, commitments and dilemmas.
This Year, Next Year is a book of poetry about love and loss… (it) turned my heart inside out.
Moira Andrew’s richly descriptive poetry often centres upon her theme; relationships. A fine painterly poet who never fails to repay the reader.
The concern with failing eyesight that casts a shadow behind this collection, seems only to have sharpened Moira Andrew’s observation. Agile in their shifting forms and rhythms, the poems have an unsentimental tenderness always underpinned by the passage of time. They look back, as if in surprise, at the ‘new old me’ who writes them, still possessed of a child’s fresh curiosity and a grown woman’s appetites.
Moira Andrew's poems are agile in their shifting forms and rhythms. They have an unsentimental tenderness always underpinned by the passage of time. They look back, as if surprised, at the 'new old me' who writes them, still possessed of a child's curiosity and a grown woman's appetites.
These compelling poems show a poet coming to terms with grief, drawing on memory, wit, the present moment and the rounded experience of a loved life. A painterly eye brings skilful use of colour imagery to add to the impact of this aptly-titled collection. All the senses are alive in these pages where Firebird holds the key to love and death. Highly recommended.
Moira’s poems offer a delightful variety of style and content, from small incidents to sexy reminiscences, thoughtful and sensitive considerations and simply fun. Always accessible, they have an extremely wide-ranging appeal.
The world is full of poets whose work leaves you thinking "that's all very clever but what the hell is he (or she) on about?" That is never the case with Moira's poems. she writes about the experiences of real people, very often based on her own life, and you connect with them immediately. Yes they are clever, but in the way she distils the essence of being a human being down to a few carefully chosen phrases, filled with humour, love and humanity. She is a treasure.
Moira Andrew turns the base metal of everyday life into a golden treasure of poetry. The big moments of life - romance and tragedy - but also the small pleasures and little incidents of daily life which most of us either take for granted or miss completely. Over many years she has given great joy to children and adults alike, and the world is a better place for her poetry and her teaching.
What Moira Andrew writes always resonates with truth conveyed by images that are both startling and yet somehow familiar in a totally fresh way. She is a poet who delights over and over again, weaving life with words redolent with life-affirming experiences. Her writing is inclusive, human and eye-washed sparkling. She helps us see situations, that we all share, in a totally invigorating way that can, at it's best, be both emotionally re-assuring and transformative. Moira Andrew is a poet that I simply love to read over and over again. Unique, warm and truly pleasurable.