Strange Fruits

Strange Fruits is a collection of poems written by Maria C. McCarthy, published to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support, the charity that helped her friend Karen McAndrew in the last weeks of her life. Maria is a poet of remarkable skill, whose work offers surprising glimpses into our 21st-century lives - the 'strange fruits' of our civilisation or lack of it - shot through with meditations on the past and her heritage as 'an Irish girl, an English woman'. "Maria McCarthy writes of the poetry process: 'There is a quickening early in the day' ('Raising poems'). A quickening is certainly apparent in these humane poems, which are both natural and skilful, and combine the earthiness and mysteriousness of life. I read strange fruits with pleasure, surprise and a sense of recognition." Moniza Alvi, author of Europa. All profits from the sale of this book go to Macmillan Cancer Support, Registered Charity Number 261017. Strange Fruits is the fourth project from WordAid, a collective of poets dedicated to raising money for charity.