Tag Archives: Irish poetry

R.I.P. Paul Durcan

I just heard the news that acclaimed poet Paul Durcan has died at the age of 80. The couple of obits I’ve read have been fairly obligatory although I am sure there will be more in-depth pieces as the news … Continue reading

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Year in Review: Running my mouth in 2020, Part 2

Here’s part 1, a list of things I’ve written for other outlets. This list, then, is a hodge-podge of the things I’ve written here this year. Anyone familiar with this joint knows that I do tribute posts for people’s birthdays. … Continue reading

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R.I.P. Derek Mahon

“When growing up, my bunch of friends would have thought of ourselves as anti-unionist because we were anti-establishment. We would have been vaguely all-Ireland republican socialists. But then, when theory turned into practice, we had to decide where we stood … Continue reading

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R.I.P. Irish poet Eavan Boland

“I began to know that I had to bring the poem I’d learned to write near to the life I was starting to live. And that if anything had to yield in that process, it was the poem not the … Continue reading

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“But there is all this ambiguity. That is poetry. It is the other thing that is the other thing.” — Irish poet Derek Mahon

“[Seamus] Heaney is a Wordsworth man and I’m a Coleridge man. I love the poetry, and the trajectory of his life has always fascinated me. His Biographia is a complete mess, but is still full of the most wonderful stuff.” … Continue reading

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Bookshelf Tour #4

Poetry is important to me. My collection is small but each volume is loved, read, dipped into, used constantly as references. Six Centuries of Great Poetry: A Stunning Collection of Classic British Poems from Chaucer to Yeats, edited by Robert … Continue reading

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Happy Birthday, Paul Muldoon

“This work [Paul Muldoon’s book ‘The Annals of Chile’] gives the impression of coming clean and being clandestine at one and the same time. It is Joycean in its combination of the everyday and the erudite, but it is also … Continue reading

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The Books: Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001: ‘Through-Other Places, Through-Other Times: The Irish Poet and Britain,’ by Seamus Heaney

On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!) NEXT BOOK: Seamus Heaney’s Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001. The following … Continue reading

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The Books: Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001: ‘The Placeless Heaven: Another Look at Kavanagh,’ by Seamus Heaney

On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!) NEXT BOOK: Seamus Heaney’s Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001. Seamus Heaney … Continue reading

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The Books: Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001: ‘Yeats as an Example?,’ by Seamus Heaney

On the essays shelf (yes, there are still more books to excerpt in my vast library. I can’t seem to stop this excerpts-from-my-library project. I started it in 2006!) NEXT BOOK: Seamus Heaney’s Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001. The Irish … Continue reading

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