Like a long night in the flaring glow of a pub,
Gather Round Me mixes the playful and the tragic, the melancholy and the ironic, and it reminds us finally of a dispossessed people's need for songs and poems that could always be carried in their hearts and minds. --Billy Collins
"A peerless collection of classic and contemporary poetry from Ireland . . . This book is a must-have for anyone seeking an artistic air of Eire." --Phil Hall, New York Resident
"Diversity of styles and subjects makes for a lively collection, true. But what makes
Gather Round Me such a lovely collection is the unique harmony of irrepressible voices joined together in-to swipe a phrase from 'The Outlaw of Loch Lene'-'the sweet wild twist' of Irish verse." --Kathleen Johnson,
Kansas City Star "A lovely rattlebag, a saddlebag, a grab bag of poems. Christopher Cahill has put together a collection that gathers us around four hundred years of love, life, and lament. There's a marvelous eclectic arc in operation here. Cahill invents a hearth where we are invited to sit from early morning until nightfall, so open a bottle and set aside the parting glass. --Colum McCann, author of
Dancer