To a Fault

the long version

Winner of the 2005 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature; winner of the 2005 Ireland Chair for Poetry Award; the only poetry book long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. "A confident hybrid of voices and styles…tender and brilliant."―*Irish Times* Journeying between his native Ulster and his adopted London, Nick Laird balances ideas of home and flight, the need for belonging and the need to remain outside. Dexterous, fresh, and deft, *To a Fault* does "more, in its range and ambition, than any other first collection…in at least the last ten years" (*The Independent*).