Book excerpt: Irish poet Catherine Phil MacCarthy's fourth collection of poems, The Invisible Threshold explores from several angles the idea of 'threshold' or the 'liminal', the state of being in transition from one moment to the next. These poems celebrate life with a deep sense of wonder. They capture transformational moments of experience where mortality and loss, as well as the ties between the body and spirit, are explored. Reconciliation with a mother's death brings "a sense of first breath on the earth" ('Facing the Rising Sun') and acknowledges that grief delivers a new freedom, where intense life is "open to pure being" ('Turning South') and the abundant energies of summer. Catherine Phil MacCarthy was born in Co. Limerick, in 1954 and educated at University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, and Central School of Speech and Drama, London. Her collections of poetry include This Hour of the Tide (1994), the blue globe (1998) and Suntrap (2007). She has also published a novel, One Room an Everywhere (2003). She won the Fish International Poetry Prize in 2010, and is a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review.