The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse

by Thomas Kinsella (translator)

Selected by Thomas Kinsella, a renowned poet and translator, this anthology presents the Irish tradition as unity: verse in Irish and English, usually regarded separately, are shown as elements in a shared and often painful history. As the most wide-ranging anthology available-spanning from the pre-Christian era to the present day, the poems are grouped in three sections. Kinsella's first selections are from the earliest pre-Christian times and move forward to the first poetry in English from the 14th century. Next comes Irish bardic poetry and English poetry in the era of Swift and Goldsmith. The final section brings us to the recent past and the present with 19th- and 20th-century poets from Davis, Mangan, Yeats, and Ferguson to Austin Clarke, Patrick Kavanagh, and Seamus Heaney.

Genres: Poetry, Ireland, Irish Literature, History, Reference, Anthologies

464 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 1986

About the author

Thomas Kinsella was an Irish poet, translator, editor, and publisher.

He was educated at the Model School, Inchicore, where classes were taught in the Irish language, and at the O'Connell Schools in North Richmond Street, Dublin. His father and grandfather both worked in Guinness's Brewery. He entered University College Dublin in 1946, initially to study science. After a few terms in college, he took a post in the Irish civil service in the Department of Finance and continued his university studies at night, having switched to humanities and arts.

Kinsella's first poems were published in the University College Dublin magazine National Student. His first pamphlet, The Starlit Eye (1952), was published by Liam Miller's Dolmen Press, as was Poems (1956), his first book-length publication. These were followed by Another September (1958), Moralities (1960), Downstream (1962), Wormwood (1966), and the long poem Nightwalker (1967).

Marked as it was by the influence of W. H. Auden and dealing with a primarily urban landscape and with questions of romantic love, Kinsella's early work marked him as distinct from the mainstream of Irish poetry in the 1950s and 1960s, which tended to be dominated by the example of Patrick Kavanagh.

He received the Honorary Freedom of the City of Dublin in May 2007.

He taught the Irish Tradition Programme at Trinity College Dublin.

In December 2018, he was awarded Doctor in Litteris, Honoris Causa, by the Trinity College Dublin.

In 1965, Kinsella left the civil service to become writer in residence at Southern Illinois University, and in 1970 he became a professor of English at Temple University in Philadelphia. While at Temple, he developed a programme enabling students to study in Ireland called "the Irish Experience".

In 1972, he started Peppercanister Press to publish his own work. The first Peppercanister production was Butcher's Dozen, a satirical response to the Widgery Tribunal into the events of Bloody Sunday. This poem drew on the aisling tradition and specifically on Brian Merriman's Cúirt An Mheán Óiche. Kinsella's interest in the publishing process dates back at least as far as helping set the type for The Starlit Eye 20 years earlier.

In the Peppercanister poems, Kinsella's work ceased to be Audenesque and became more clearly influenced by American modernism, particularly the poetry of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams and Robert Lowell. In addition, the poetry started to focus more on the individual psyche as seen through the work of Carl Jung. These tendencies first appeared in the poems of Notes from the Land of the Dead (1973) and One (1974).

In the 1980s, books such as Her Vertical Smile (1985) Out of Ireland (1987) and St Catherine's Clock (1987) marked a move away from the personal to the historical. This continued into a sometimes darkly satirical focus on a contemporary landscape through the late 1980s and 1990s in such books as One Fond Embrace (1988), Personal Places (1990), Poems From Centre City (1990) and The Pen Shop (1996). His Collected Poems appeared in 1996 and again in an updated edition in 2001.

Kinsella died in Dublin at the age of 93.

abridged from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[The Half-blood Reader]

College reads: I only read poems relevant to my studies, hence the dnf

[Sean Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost 1,500 years of poetry presented in one all-English language text. There is an interesting progression from pagan to Christian Ireland, and then a kind of wistful yet proud response to the English colonization. The original texts were in Irish, English and even Norman French, so it is quite a range. Around the 19th century section, the progression drifts inevitably towards nationalism, not unlike most European countries of that era. There is however a small representation of the loyalist population. The modern poems are more individualistic and denser in perspective and expression - reflecting the maturity of the nation from violent, bigoted Catholic independence to a more self confident and international voice.

Some of the choices of text are rather curious: Merriman acquires not less than 27 pages whilst better poets like Years, Beckett and Heaney have a handful: perhaps they are already too well-represented elsewhere. On the plus side, for Beckett fans there is an alternative translation of I would like my love to die...

Some further additions would be welcome: if they are still known, more pre-Christian poems. Also whilst they are rare in historical Ireland, some female poets would be welcome to see (perhaps some of the anonymous authors were women, but from the themes of self-immolating widows, it seems unlikely, considering any Irish women I have known...).

A strange exclusion is Eavan Boland: surely a poet better than Merriman. She was born a little late for Kinsella (he chose to halt around the year 1941, when Yeats died: selecting poets born then, as though Yeat's poetic spirit were reincarnated...). Boland was born in 1944: a gap of three years seems insignificant when spanning almost 1,500.

In any selection, omissions are always a challenge, and attempting to cover such a time period involving multiple cultures, inevitably leads to exclusions. So, despite these shortcomings I will certainly be reading this text again in years to come. It would be nice however to have a revised edition - besides Boland, there are always new poets being born...

As an Irish immigrant I found it especially poignant, the themes of loss of the pagan and then the Gaelic culture, echoing the losses and sacrifices of leaving the motherland behind...

[Holt Dwyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good compilation of Irish poetry, dating from musings on the arrival of Christianity through Yeats and later followers. Includes beautiful work translated by Kinsella from Irish, which gives a highly personal view into the bardic traditions of Ireland and their slow demise. Many poems, including the humorous "The Lovely Étan", an excerpt from the tales of Dierdre, and a poem from the perspective of an old woman looking back at her glorious youth, are real gems.

[Edward Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice survey of Irish poetry. A bit on the "orange" side, and a little light on the "green", if you catch my drift. Still, a worthwhile read.