The Faber Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry

by Paul Muldoon (Editor)

Taking the death of Yeats in 1939 as its starting point, this anthology features selections from the work of ten Irish poets, including Patrick Kavanagh, Louis MacNeice, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Seamus Heaney, and Michael Longley

Genres: Poetry, Irish Literature

416 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1986

About the author

Born in Northern Ireland, Muldoon currently resides in the US and teaches at Princeton University. He held the chair of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from 1999 through 2004. In September 2007, Muldoon became the poetry editor of The New Yorker.

Awards:
1992: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for Madoc: A Mystery
1994: T. S. Eliot Prize for The Annals of Chile
1997: Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry for New Selected Poems 1968–1994
2002: T. S. Eliot Prize (shortlist) for Moy Sand and Gravel
2003: Griffin Poetry Prize (Canada) for Moy Sand and Gravel
2003: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Moy Sand and Gravel
2004: American Ireland Fund Literary Award
2004: Aspen Prize
2004: Shakespeare Prize

Reviews

[Francisca]

regardless of the changing definition of what is considered 'contemporary' or not today (this was edited in the eighties), I have serious doubts Muldoon would be able to get away with this selection without some backlash... ten poets and only one a woman? I guess women didn't know how to write in the eighties in Ireland.

[Gareth Culshaw]

These sort of books are great for knowing poets you may never try. Some I have books on but John Montague is not a poet I have bothered with. I do like his poems. It is a good book of Irish Poetry.

[Kieran]

Was there only one woman poet in the whole of Ireland?

[Susan]

What can I say . . . I'm Irish!

[Karen S.]

I only read Medbh McGuckian's part.