Great to receive a copy of this anthology during the week, edited by Federico Italiano and Jan Wagner, containing German translations of my work, alongside many, many poets whom I greatly admire. Among the Irish contingent are Ailbhe Darcy, Alan Gillis, Victoria Kennefick, Nick Laird, John McAuliffe, Sinéad Morrissey, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Leanne O’Sullivan, Justin Quinn and David Wheatley. This book is divided into various ‘itineraries’, taking in Poland, Wales, Macedonia, Iceland Moldova, Portugal and Finland; another begins in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Cyprus, Norway and Belarus; the third journey takes us from England to Israel, Denmark, Austria, Croatia, Luxembourg and Russia; the fourth leg includes poets from Chechnya, Bulgaria, Scotland, Georgia, Italy, Kosovo and Latvia; the fifth itinerary takes in Belgium, Malta, Lithuania, Andorra, Hungary, Turkey and Serbia; the sixth trip begins in Switzerland before taking us to Romania, Albania, Slovakia, Spain, Montenegro and Estonia; the seventh and final trek take us from Ukraine to Germany, Armenia, Greenland, Sweden, Northern Ireland and Slovenia. These are poignant -and vital – poetic journeys, given what the scenes that are emerging from Ukraine in recent days and weeks…

Many thanks to the editors and to Hans-Christian Oeser who translated my poems to German, and to the publisher Carl Hanser Verlag.