The Dogs of Humanity

With subject-matter this fresh, and an avoidance of zeitgeist poetry, what really sets the work apart tonally and in subject is its assumption of a counter-position at all times. The result is original writing. No poetic braggadocio here: just great poetry.
- Mary O’Donnell

Wry, melancholy, and wise, Colin Dardis's The Dogs of Humanity confirms his status as one of Ireland's most original contemporary voices. These are poems that circle, pack-like, around the truths of our humanity - our violence, our anxieties, and above all, our potential for love.
- Jess Traynor

The voice in these poems is insightful, urgent but compassionate making the collection an enjoyable but unsettling read, with its call for perception, for engagement with the realities of the human condition and the lost souls of the early twentieth first century.
- Michael Farry

Dardis shows us that he has the ability to take the world we create in moments of the everyday and spin it on a new axis. The reader who enters this zoo of poems will find that the animal seen most often will be themselves.
- Mel McMahon

from Fly on the Wall Press
release date: 1st August, 2019
available to order: print | ebook

"These poems are thematically linked by imagery, or direct allusion to, dogs and others animals. The first part, 'Dogs', uses canine imagery to explore themes of depression and weariness, how societal expectations can leave a person feeling (a runt, a mongrel, etc.). Issues of savagery and lack of humanity are explored, with animals also used as a motif to retreat into a pastoral idea, an escapism from mental health issues, finding an affinity with a nature that we must also sometimes contest."

The collection champions the downtrodden, the bullied, the scorned, the misunderstood, while also pointing a finger to those who mistreat others. These are poems of hurt, of empathy and resilience, but most of all, of the want for a kinder world.

The cover is a detail from Brueghel's Studies of Dogs (circa 1616).

You Fathomed Things:
a soundtrack to 'The Dogs of Humanity'

Ambient sounds, designed to be listened to while reading the collection. Stream/download for free or pay-want-you-want from Bandcamp.