“In this wonderful collection, [Here Comes the Night] Gillis’s audacious formal and linguistic virtuosity immerses the reader in a twofold world separated by an invisible screen, a two-way looking glass, through which the poet constantly navigates.” — Alexandra Tauvry, Tower Poetry Read the full review here.
The Belfast poet on etymology, translations and his new collection of poems after the French master Arthur Rimbaud Between 1872 and 1875, a young French vagabond, perhaps under the influence of alcohol and opium, travelled between London, Paris and Belgium, writing poems that would reflect how he had ‘[made] himself a seer through a long, […]
Pól Muirí reviews Gerald Dawe’s Selected Poems. Belfast poet Gerald Dawe’s seven collections distilled into one, with ‘home territory’ the dominant theme Ultimately, poetry is about writing something worth reading. Does the poem speak to me? Does the poet speak of things worth hearing? The answer to both questions, in the case of Belfast poet […]
‘These three fine and finely-produced books all maintain the Gallery gold standard, representing different generations in the contemporary Irish canon. McAuliffe and Quinn, exiles in the UK and Czech Republic respectively, find common ground in their exploratioin and probing of geographical, cultural and psychic dislocations, whereas Montague is more content to create a luminous next […]
Extract from Estudios Irlandeses review of Derek Mahon’s New Collected Poems. . . . what is remarkable is not simply the quantity of Mahon’s new poetry, but, more importantly, the signal quality of much of this later effusion . . . in these more recent works there has been a qualitative change in the nature […]
. . . As one of the founder-editors of the journal Metre, Justin Quinn’s commitment to formality is on the record. But of course — as Seamus Heaney says — a formal decision is never only formal. Quinn’s technical accomplishment is the highly effective means to an end. The title suggests the close quarters that […]
A translation by Mahon is an exciting event . . . Mahon’s love of the French 19th century is well established, but there are numerous welcome surprises in the poets assembled here, including a section from the Chinese, some Pushkin, Ibsen adn Quevedo, and a scattering of Congolese poets. . . Mahon revisits and renews […]
In Speech Lessons the celebrated octogenarian John Montague writes with uncanny accuracy and affection of family, landscape and tradition . . . He writes with optimism, warmth and skill as he reflects on private and public histories. The ‘Speech Lessons’ of his title are voiced in each poem: the speeches he puts into the mouths […]
Close Quarters is the formalist Justin Quinn’s fifth collection. He gets up close and personal with his native Ireland and adopted Prague, describes the Cold War and all the quarters of the year, and embraces the tensions of married life and parenthood . . . Deft lyrics conjoin serious content with mood music, perhaps none […]
THE POEMS IN John McAuliffe’s Of All Places (The Gallery Press, 72pp, €11.95) are also said to contain “a hint of Auden’s formal patterns” in a back-cover note. It is undoubtedly McAuliffe’s strongest collection to date, and the poems in it reveal the poet’s sincere concern with communicating something useful out of his everyday encounters with the […]
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