The Voyage of St Brendan: with illustrations by Kathleen Neeley

By A.B. Jackson and Kathleen Neeley

In The Voyage of St Brendan, A.B. Jackson tells the tale of the legendary seafaring Irish abbot. After burning a book of fantastical stories, Brendan is compelled to sail the ocean with a crew of six monks in a leather-skinned currach; his task, to prove the existence of wonders in the world and create a new book of marvels. Discoveries include Jasconius the island-whale, a troop of Arctic ghosts, a hellmouth of tortured souls, a rock-bound Judas, and the magical castle of the boar-headed Walserands. Although the roots of this legend lie in early Irish tales and the Latin Voyage of Brendan the Abbot of the ninth century, Jackson has taken the 14th-century Middle Dutch version of Brendan’s voyage as the template for this engaging, witty and spirited interpretation, notable for its humour and inventiveness. The book is beautifully illustrated with a series of black and white linocuts by the American artist Kathleen Neeley, one of which features in colour on the cover.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Jun 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781780375670

A.B. Jackson

A.B. Jackson was born in Glasgow in 1965 and raised in the village of Bramhall, Cheshire. After moving to Cupar in Fife he studied English Literature at the University of Edinburgh. His first book, Fire Stations (Anvil), won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2003, and a limited edition pamphlet, Apocrypha (Donut Press), was published in 2011. In 2010 he won first prize in the Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition. His second collection, The Wilderness Party (Bloodaxe Books, 2015), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Voyage of St Brendan was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2021. He currently lives in Leeds.

Book preview

A.B. JACKSON

THE VOYAGE OF ST BRENDAN

In The Voyage of St Brendan, A.B. Jackson tells the tale of the legendary seafaring Irish abbot. After burning a book of fantastical stories, Brendan is compelled to sail the ocean with a crew of six monks in a leather-skinned currach; his task, to prove the existence of wonders in the world and create a new book of marvels. Discoveries include Jasconius the island-whale, a troop of Arctic ghosts, a hellmouth of tortured souls, a rock-bound Judas, and the magical castle of the boar-headed Walserands.

Although the roots of this legend lie in early Irish immrama and the Latin Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis of the 9th century, Jackson has taken the 14th-century Middle Dutch version of Brendan’s voyage as the template for this engaging and spirited interpretation, making it recommended reading for scholars of medieval literature and lovers of fantasy adventure alike.

‘A.B. Jackson’s exquisitely subtle, uproarious, comical and transcendent work is extraordinarily concise and beautiful. Its words relish and reinvent The Voyage of St Brendan as a Dark Age rollercoaster ride.’ – Philip Hoare

‘A.B. Jackson’s The Voyage of St Brendan invites us into its weird and gentle fictions – a feat of seriocomic storytelling.’ – Vahni Capildeo

‘Jackson’s inventive, stylish versions of these sea-wonders are deeply reimagined in keeping with their traditional sources, while also offering the contemporary reader a beguiling and authentic exposure to the marvellous.’ – Maurice Riordan

‘Jackson’s images gleam, his rhythms and rhymes are jouncing and ingenious, making each poem a pleasure to read and re-read.’ – Vidyan Ravinthiran

Cover linocut by Kathleen Neeley

A.B. JACKSON

The Voyage of

St Brendan

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY

Kathleen Neeley

for the Fureys –

Martin, Áine, Robert

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following publications in which some of these poems first appeared: Bad Lilies, The Dark Horse, The Island Review, Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, and The Poetry Review.

This work would not have been possible without a PhD studentship from Sheffield Hallam University in 2012 and the guidance of my supervisors: Steve Earnshaw, Maurice Riordan, and Chris Hopkins.

I am grateful to New Writing North for a Northern Writers’ Award in 2016, and to the Society of Authors for an Authors’ Foundation grant which allowed me to travel to Ardfert and the Dingle peninsula (including