Read Ireland Book Review
Issue 108
Poetry
Poems 1975-1995 by Micheal O'Siadhail (Paperback; 12.50 IEP / 17.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
Micheal O'Siadhail's poetry has always set the interests of a life against the backdrop of worlds shaken by change. He constantly seeks new dimensions: delving passions of friendship, marriage, trust and betrayal in an urban culture, exploring the intricacies of music and science as he tried to shape an understanding of the shifts and transformations of late modernity. This book traces the continuity of a poetic voice resonating with classic traditions. This selection is taken from nine books and contains an illuminating introduction by the author in which he draws together the strands of a poetry that 'comes from the core,' 'an endless jazz improvisation.'
Poetry Quartets 4: Paul Durcan, Brendan Kennelly, Michael Longly and Medbh McGuckian (2 Audio Cassettes; 10.00 IEP / 14.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This series of recordings of contemporary Irish poets is a two-hour double-cassette of the four poets reading and talking about their work, each with a half-hour selection.
Collected Poems by Derek Mahon (Paperback; 13.95 IEP / 20.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This volume brings together in updated form, the poems the author 'wishes to preserve' from the work of forty years. Highly praised at home and abroad, they range in time and space from the early 'Beyond Howth Head' and 'A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford' to the ambitions later sequences, 'The Hudson Letter' and 'The Yellow Book'. The collection closes with a group of new poems.
Falling Into Monaghan by Gerald Hull (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 10.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This collection is a study of the poet's 'settlement in the west' - in South Ulster on the border territory near the Slieve Beagh mountains. It deals with the consciousness of a kind of desolation that is sometimes bitter, often vigorous, frequently comic. Filtered through this, uniquely, are commentaries on the author's London Irish/Italian background.
Still Listening by Angela Patten (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 10.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
The poems in this collection depend on memory and dreams as their inexhaustible source. They describe a sense of living between two worlds - the romantic America of childhood and the folklore of the remembered Irish past. Patten's poems illustrate the notion that making poetry is the process of making the familiar strange, of drawing attention to a wisdom and humour that is intrinsic to everyday Irish speech. These poems come directly out of an oral tradition in which family troubles re turned into familiar stories that can be retold and relished again and again. It is these stories and their peculiarly Irish turns of phrase that lend a characteristic music and texture to the poems.
The Interior Act by Frank Golden (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 10.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
The Interior Act is a movement from terror to a kind of interior place, interspersed with praise, obsession, memory, rant, death, love. Unusual in a poetry collection, the author explores at length the fracturing actions and memories of an imagined life and the fragmented witness of an alter-life. The landscape of the mind is a central theme in his work, and in this collection he negotiates a narrow path through poems and fragments which attempt to declare their truth; be it brutal, glorious, desperate, solacing.
Tenant by Maighread Medbh (Paperback; 6.99 IEP / 10.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
Tenant is a narrative sequence, following the fictional O'Sullivan family through the traumatic famine years, 1845 to 1849. The main character is Rena, whose personal journey through the period represents the shock, struggle, devastation and dubious resolution through death that marked the time. Her father, Peadar, is also central to the story and his inability to blossom in his life is another kind of hunger. From the first, these poems were an attempted retrospective incarnation, a transporting backwards of characters who are also recognisable in our time. It involves opening the ear to their voices and to the voices of the terrain, inner and outer.
Half-Day Warriors by John Kavanagh (Paperback;6.99 IEP / 10.00 USD) [Add To Basket]
This is the second collection from the Listowel Writers' Week prizewinner. In this collection the poet brings to his readers a maturing and developing talent, with which he continues to explore his favourite themes: the energies and impulses, the gains and losses of love; a highly developed awareness of a sense of place in the post-modern world; and, a growing awareness of the tension between inner and outer, private and public worlds.
Poet's Tower and Love Poems by Bernard Kennedy (Paperback; 7.99 IEP / 11.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This collection of poetry places its emphasis on nature, love and contemporary issues. It is a commentary on the Ireland of today in poetry form, and a view of women's search for equality. Those who love animals will find 'a sad parting' a touching animal tribute; while 'A Woman's question' illustrates the continuing need for equality. The tragedy of Omagh, in 'Bombed in Omagh', reflects the darkness of Ireland, and 'Half Moon Street' is a tribute to the war poets.
The White Page: An Bhileog Bhan: Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets by Joan McBreen (Paperback; 9.99 IEP / 13.50 USD) [Add To Basket]
This book is a comprehensive study of Irish women's poetry published in book form in the twentieth century. It is an extended annotated directory, with biographical and bibliographical details on each poet. Poems and photographs, donated by the poets themselves, are also included. Includes poets born in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as those of Irish ancestry and non-nationals who have been resident in Ireland for long periods. A reference book for all students of Irish literature, it is also a poetry anthology featuring more than 100 Irish women poets who have published at least one collection.
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