Test, Orange by Cherry Smyth

28 June 2012 Greenwich, University of

Publication title: Test, Orange
Author: Cherry Smyth
Publication type: Book (Paperback)

A Creative Writing lecturer at the University of Greenwich has published her third collection of poems.

Irish poet Cherry Smyth is a senior lecturer in the university’s School of Humanities & Social Sciences. Her latest collection, called Test, Orange, has 80 poems written between 2005 and 2011.

Cherry says the title stems from the colour coding of the national security service threat alert system. Her poems are about being tested by some of life’s difficult events, like betrayal, grief, sadness, and illness in the family.

She says: “In some ways, it’s a difficult book, but you also see the persona of the poems coming through in the end. Some use autobiography, while others derive from imagined experience, such as seeing life from the perspective of a Japanese scientist.”

Of her style, she says: “I shuffle words, weigh them up, and search for a particular musicality which aligns the world for a brief moment with my experience of it.”

Earlier this year, Cherry was instrumental in establishing the Stephen Lawrence Poetry Prizes, awarded to Greenwich undergraduates. Her debut poetry collection, When the Lights Go Up, was published in 2001, with a second collection, One Wanted Thing, following in 2006.