An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry - Softcover

The book includes upwards of 50 poets-and there's not a dull page in it. Editor Wes Davis's selection is judicious, while his introduction and notes are as informative as they are brief. -- Richard Tillinghast Wall Street Journal 20100424 An incredible bargain, this beautifully produced book (the spacious creamy pages are a great comfort to screen-weary eyeballs), with compact introduction and judicious notes by the editor, has a gem on every page. -- Tom D'Evelyn Providence Journal 20100606 This is a book to be grateful for. -- Robert Gray The Australian 20100901 The wave of diverse younger talents that emerged during the recent boom times is [well-served] by Wes Davis in his voluminous Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, a handsome production from Harvard... The poets get room to breathe here, in generous selections of up to twenty poems, and each is prefaced by a brief critical-biographical essay that manages to be both unfussy and well informed. -- Gerald Mangan Times Literary Supplement 20110527 This is a book that in every sense deserves a broad readership... An anthology ultimately stands or falls on the strength of the work that it collects. In this regard, especially, An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry is a notable success. -- Bill Coyle New Criterion 20110601

Never before has there been a single-volume anthology of modern Irish poetry so significant and groundbreaking as An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry. Collected here is a comprehensive representation of Irish poetic achievement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from poets such as Austin Clarke and Samuel Beckett who were writing while Yeats and Joyce were still living; to those who came of age in the turbulent '60s as sectarian violence escalated, including Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley; to a new generation of Irish writers, represented by such diverse, interesting voices as David Wheatley (born 1970) and Sinead Morrissey (born 1972). Scholar and editor Wes Davis has chosen work by more than fifty leading modern and contemporary Irish poets. Each poet is represented by a generous number of poems (there are nearly 800 poems in the anthology). The editor's selection includes work by world-renowned poets, including a couple of Nobel Prize winners, as well as work by poets whose careers may be less well known to the general public; by poets writing in English; and by several working in the Irish language (Gaelic selections appear in translation). Accompanying the selections are a general introduction that provides a historical overview, informative short essays on each poet, and helpful notes-all prepared by the editor.