The Man Made of Rain - Softcover

Kennelly, Brendan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852244550 ISBN 13: 9781852244552

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 1998

Synopsis

Brendan Kennelly’s poetry has always taken on the mantle of the outcast, revealing as well as reviling, as The Man Made of Rain clearly shows. This book-length poem is a departure for Kennelly, a visionary work written out of the body, out of the self, out of the shadowlands between life and death. It was published in simultaneously in hardback, paperback and audio cassette formats. Now out of print, it is included in Familiar Strangers: New & Selected Poems 1960-2004. Brendan Kennelly writes: ‘I had major heart surgery, a quadruple bypass, in October 1996. The day after the operation I had a number of visions… I saw a man made of rain. He was actually raining, all his parts were raining slant-wise. His talk was genial, light and authoritative, a language of irresistible invitation to follow him wherever he decided to go, or was compelled by his own inner forces to go…The man made of rain would not leave me until I let his presence flow in the best and only poem I could write for him. Though I appear in the poem, or what I recognise as my “own” voice sounds through it, the poem is essentially a homage to his presence, a map of his wandering discoveries, and an evidence of my inadequate witnessing of those discoveries and that presence. He is a real presence in the poem; I am more an absence longing to be a presence.’

About this title

About the Author

Brendan Kennelly is one of Ireland’s most distinguished and best loved poets, as well as a renowned teacher and cultural commentator. Born in 1936 in Ballylongford, Co. Kerry, he was Professor of Modern Literature at Trinity College, Dublin for over 30 years, and retired from teaching in 2005. He now lives in Listowel, Co. Kerry. He has published more than 30 books of poetry, including Familiar Strangers: New & Selected Poems 1960-2004 (2004), which includes the whole of his book-length poem The Man Made of Rain (1998). He is best-known for two controversial poetry books, Cromwell, published in Ireland in 1983 and in Britain by Bloodaxe in 1987, and his epic poem The Book of Judas (1991), which topped the Irish bestsellers list: a shorter version was published by Bloodaxe in 2002 as The Little Book of Judas. His third epic, Poetry My Arse (1995), did much to outdo these in notoriety. All these remain available separately from Bloodaxe, along with his more recent titles: Glimpses (2001), Martial Art (2003), Now (2006), Reservoir Voices (2009), The Essential Brendan Kennelly: Selected Poems, edited by Terence Brown and Michael Longley, with audio CD (2011), and Guff (2013). His Journey into Joy: Selected Prose, edited by Åke Persson, was published by Bloodaxe in 1994, along with Dark Fathers into Light, a critical anthology on his work edited by Richard Pine. John McDonagh’s critical study Brendan Kennelly: A Host of Ghosts was published in The Liffey Press’s Contemporary Irish Writers series in 2004.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1852244550
• ISBN 13: 9781852244552
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96