Collected Poems 1952-2000 - Hardcover

Murphy Mbchb (Hons), Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0916390985 ISBN 13: 9780916390983

Publisher: Wake Forest University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Richard Murphy emerged in the 1950s with John Montague and Thomas Kinsella as one of the three major poets in the new Irish poetic renaissance. His second volume Sailing to an Island, which was a Poetry Book Society Choice, was followed by The Battle of Aughrim, widely acclaimed as one of the most powerful historical narratives of the twentieth century. Although the next volumes range from his signature setting of the grey stone and surging sea of Ireland's western islands to vivid Eastern settings, they offer a renewed lyricism, in the poignant narrative and descriptive poems of High Island, the colorful psychological portrayals of childhood in Ceylon, and the sonnet sequence that comprises The Price of Stone. Playfully and candidly, this later work gives voice to structures as varied as Kylemore Castle, a tinker's wattle tent, Nelson's Pillar, and a beehive cell in which a woman gives birth alone on High Island. The Collected Poems is a major achievement, not only because on page after page it reveals poetry of exceptional insight and passion, but also because it brings into focus the wide poetic range--geographical, formal, and tonal--of which Richard Murphy is master.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Murphy was born in 1927 in Co. Mayo, the son of an officer in colonial service in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and later Governor of the Bahamas. He received a scholarship to Oxford, where C. S. Lewis was his tutor. Having lived for many years in Connemara, he now divides his time between Dublin and Durban, South Africa. Richard Murphy's many volumes of poetry include The Archaeology of Love (1955); Sailing to an Ireland (1955, 1963, 1968); The Battle of Aughrim and The God Who Eats Corn (1968); Selected Poems (1979); The Price of Stone and Earlier Poems (1985); New Selected Poems (1989); The Mirror Wall (1989); and Collected Poems (2000). His poetry has also been collected in several anthologies. His memoir, The Kick, was published in 2001. A member of Aosdána and of the Royal Society of Literature, he has received numerous literary awards, including the British Arts Council Award, the Marten Toonder Award, and the American Irish Foundation Literary Award.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wake Forest University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0916390985
• ISBN 13: 9780916390983
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 226