Selected Poems - Softcover

Longley, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224050354 ISBN 13: 9780224050357

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 1998

Synopsis

Celebrated for his lyrical intensity, his metaphysical wit, his thematic and formal range, Michael Longley is widely regarded as one of the finest poets in these islands. His life in Northern Ireland has contributed to the complexity of a poetic universe in which love, friendship and aesthetics contend with war, death and violance. There are no hard boundaries between Longley's love poetry, his nature poetry, his war poetry and his elegies. Longley looks to the poets of Greece and Rome, particularly Homer and Ovid, and to the poets of the two world wars. His great ability, perhaps, has been to distil the large and difficult themes into highly concentrated forms.

This is Michael Longley's own selection from thirty years of writing; it reveals the strength and coherence of an extraordinary body of work.

About this title

Review:

"His work indicates one of the gifts of the major poet, of making the one life speak for all, and its corollary, of seeming to be able to speak to anyone." (Sean O'Brien)

"Michael Longley's affectionate metre, his clean-cut and lucid measure, is one of the most distinguished accomplishments in contemporary poetry." (Douglas Dunn)

"A keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of grief and wonders." (Seamus Heaney)

Book Description:

Michael Longley is, after Seamus Heaney, the most important poet to come out of the North of Ireland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0224050354
• ISBN 13: 9780224050357
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144