Imprint: Harvill Press
Published: 01/07/1999
ISBN: 9781860461873
Length: 288 Pages
Dimensions: 216mm x 21mm x 135mm
Weight: 307g
RRP: £15.00
Since the publication of his first book in 1967, Paul Durcan has made satirical, celebratory and extraordinarily moving poetry out of his country's fortunes and misfortunes. His readings are legendary and each new collection, from his collaboration with Brain Lynch, Endsville (1967) to Daddy, Daddy (winner of the 1990 Whitbread Poetry Award), Crazy about Women (1991) and Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (1999) has borne out the truth of Ezra Pound's dictum that "literature is news that stays news".
This book contains Durcan's own selection from his work. It is a literary milestone that has set the seal on his reputation as a poet of international standing.
Imprint: Harvill Press
Published: 01/07/1999
ISBN: 9781860461873
Length: 288 Pages
Dimensions: 216mm x 21mm x 135mm
Weight: 307g
RRP: £15.00
To have heard him adds another pleasure to the reading of the work- but the voice speaks clearly on the page in poems of harrowing intimacy, politics and love. He holds a mirror up to himself: but we can see ourselves over his shoulder, whoever we are
Durcan's... tall stories, dialogues and choruses, remind us that poetry can have popular reach and embody a genuinely countrywide spirit, without sacrificing integrity
Durcan's mastery of tone, his manic confidentiality, his blithe expositions of the seemingly unthinkable, his hypnotic repetitions of what other poets would hardly dare to utter once, all help to give [his work] an air of audacious authority unique in contemporary poetry
For him poetry is story-telling and his stories are told in a direct fashion that makes them totally accessible... Paul Durcan's poetry sings
Like all first-class comedians, he is deadly serious