Switch: The Complete Catullus by Isobel Williams Ana Sampson Byrne’s hymn to his brother

Byrne’s hymn to his brother is bardic

whose fragmented memories of political turmoil in twentieth-century China are sensitively threaded through the book in an eight-part poetic sequence

precisely-crafted and generous poems seek consolation and affirmation

while the passenger list features the surrealist Leonora Carrington

it’s simply the remnant of a bonnet-bee and an exhausted pun

Switch: The Complete Catullus by Isobel Williams Ana Sampson Byrne’s hymn to his brotherDuring the latter phases of covid, Isobel Williams completed the challenge of completing her celebrated translations of Catullus. The poems that had proved impossible when she was preparing Shibari Carmina, published to acclaim in 2021, relented. Now she has completed what almost eluded her. 'Translating Catullus has been, for me, like cage fighting with two opponents, not just A Top Poet, but the schoolgirl I was, trained to show the examiner that