Gerard Beirne's intense, unflinching visions of the grim and grizzly are not for the faint-hearted. His insistent focus on the detailed mechanics rather than the abstract condition of Death (more common in poetry) gives these poems the feel of some dark medieval compendium.With echoes of Lear's soliloquy on the heath, Beirne concludes What I Am Scared of Most is Nothing with the confession: "I sing when it's stormy / when it's calm I weep". The singing here will chill you, without doubt, but the sheer intensity of the language in which these visions are related - despite or perhaps because of the subject matter - is unquestionably life-affirming.