In this experimental work, Michael Hartnett risks personifying poems themselves so that they harangue and criticize each other. The Killing of Dreams reveals another facet of a perennially interesting writer.
The Killing of Dreams displays a surprisingly broad range of subjects and styles. Included is a debate on the nature of poetry itself, a farewell to pastoral, and a long, exotic poem about salvation, ‘Mountains, Fall on Us’, which brings to mind the author’s already celebrated ‘The Retreat of Ita Cagney’.
‘. . . one of the best collections of true poetry to be published in this country for some considerable time . . . a strong and deeply-motivated poet at the threshold of a new era in the development of his work. An illuminating, heartening book perhaps his best to date’. — Books Ireland
