Poetry

At last to Ithaca

Derek Mahon: a poetic style balanced between levity and profundity

Irish Literature

An Eye for the Gewgaws

Dennis O’Driscoll was his generation’s leading man of letters. He assimilated the mode and manner of translated Eastern European poetry and applied it to the…

Irish Literature

The Great Escape

Whatever its lack of charm for those who grew up here, traditional Ireland has always attracted enthusiastic European and other visitors. It’s the place where…

Irish Literature

A Centenary Poem

In 1917, the French diplomat and poet Alexis Leger, who published under the name Saint-John Perse, wrote the long poem ‘Anabasis’, a meditation on the…

Irish Literature

Jagged Lines and Smooth Numbers

Robert Lowell once said that all problems in art are ultimately technical problems and and it is the jaggedness of line of Derek Mahon's most…