We’re thrilled to publish the debut pamphlet from rising poetry star Zara Meadows, The End of Art.

Praise for The End of Art

Zara Meadows has been threatening to produce a pamphlet of poems of this quality for as long as I have been familiar with, and loving, their work. They are worldly wise beyond their years to an intimidating degree.

These poems are not only muscular, but they utilise colloquial expression in a way that feels simultaneously universal, parochial, mysterious, exotic – a tightrope many slip from, but one that Meadows is entirely at home on above us all. A love poem for their partner is both a meditation on a relationship and an implicit reflection on existing in the North of Ireland with all its complexities – just one example of how skilfully they are able to get closer than most to that Yeatsian notion of holding reality and justice in a single thought.

Perhaps most impressive is Meadows’ ability to weave a way of addressing a new generation’s concerns out of these complexities and imbue them with a post-‘Troubles’ importance: these are things we experience; they are relevant. In one such seemingly casual yet frighteningly prescient line in a poem called “Eleventh of July” they say, ‘I can measure a mile with my finger. This is political & absolute.’ This is a debut fit to compare with any from the last three decades and is resplendent with heart, love, political acumen, pop culture, ekphrasis, ice hockey, and a formidable depth of lexicon. Reading The End of Art I was like, ‘Here’s me, what???’

Matthew Rice, author of The Last Weather Observer

The End of Art feels vital, as if needing not to be read but rather exclaimed; it starts (with actual exclamation marks) as it means to continue.

A less steady hand would allow them to overwhelm, but Zara Meadows’ lines are finely and confidently wrought, and wear their making lightly. Things here turn on a dime: the tender turns visceral, the urban goes pastoral and back, and the political gets personal. There’s humour here too, wry observations, a very charming playfulness with language.

These are poems, like all the good ones, that lead you to the cliff edge and then leave you to your own devices, and they have rewarded my every rereading of them.

David Nash, author of No Man’s Land

Zara Meadows writes a kind of poem that has an unusual effect on me: speechlessness, as in, I have no idea where they’ll go next; as in, they’re full of the complex emotions of the place to which they’re dedicated; as in, this poet is forging an entirely new lexicon for how to be a person, to be a partner, to be alive in this strange place we call home. In a Meadows poem I’m reminded: “Here / though not many // know it / it is possible”.

Whatever it is, I believe it, and in these poems.

Mícheál McCann, author of Devotion

About The End of Art

In The End of Art Zara Meadows writes about love, queer identities, and family connections alongside a redrawing of contemporary Belfast.

These poems couldn't be written from anywhere other than Belfast - Zara's hometown and base -  offering a modern take on the city without forgetting its histories.

In doing so, Meadows also simultaneously looks at forging their own identity alongside the changing city; these poems might be haunted by ghosts that the poet lives alongside, but they're also full of humour and tenderness.

Grab your copy below!

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