First look: Found in a Context of Destruction by Tim MacGabhann
We’re delighted that Found in a Context of Destruction, the debut poetry collection by acclaimed writer Tim MacGabhann, is now available to pre-order! Described as a ‘virtuosic debut collection’ by Leeanne Quinn, and ‘a wild, witty and wonderful poetic odyssey’ by Victoria Kennefick, the collection charts the course of addiction and recovery through a darkly comic neo-noir lens. Found in a Context of Destruction will be released on 5 February 2026, and the cover design is by Jack Smyth.
If it ends in petrol, rags, and ice,
can we keep you here in a single, flung bottle of smoke,
its blast tinting the bellies of the pigeons
and bursting through the window
to go off in a mud star of melted plastic
across the god of love’s fifty-inch flatscreen?
Found in a Context of Destruction demonstrates a rare confidence and coherence. These formally assured poems contemplate the injuries a body and mind can sustain, and what joys we find in these darker spaces in the shape of friendship, music, and community. These spare, stark poems of love and survival open windows on rarely-seen vistas, bringing us on a delirious but vividly captured journey from Ireland to Mexico.
Tim MacGabhann’s first two novels, Call Him Mine (2019) and How to Be Nowhere (2020), are published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson. His chapbook Rory Gallagher — Live! — from the Hotel of the Dead (2023) was published by Rough Trade Books. 2025 saw the publication of The Black Pool (Sceptre), a memoir of addiction and recovery, and Saints (Scratch Books), a collection of short stories.
