The Poets' Wives

Three women, each destined to play the role of a poet's wife: Catherine, the wife of William Blake - a poet, painter and engraver who struggles for recognition in a society that dismisses him as a madman; Nadezhda, wife of Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, whose poetry costs him his life under Stalin; and the wife of a fictional contemporary Irish poet, who looks back on her marriage during the days after her husband's death as she seeks to fulfil his final wish. Across continents and centuries, they confront the contradictions between art and life, contemplate their emotional and physical sacrifices for another's creativity, and struggle with infidelities that involve not only the flesh, but ultimately poetry itself.