Friday 30 January 2009

'NEW' POETRY ESSAYS



Two forthcoming books caught my eye in the current Books Ireland magazine:

Flowing, Still :Irish Poets on Irish Poetry from Dedalus Press.
It's actually a re-issue* of Watching The River Flow (1999) with the addition of essays by Pat Boran, Theo Dorgan and David Wheatley (15 essays, 3 by women). The book will form the basis of a panel discussion at the Dublin Book Festival at City Hall, on Saturday March 7th, at 1.00 pm. Free Admission.

Poetry: reading it, writing it, publishing it from Salmon Press and edited by Jessie Lendennie. I'm not sure if this book is all written by Jessie, or if others also contribute. There is scant information either in Books Ireland or on the Salmon site. Still, the title is intriguing.

Both books are due out in February. I might make them part of my books haul at Cúirt in April.

* See clarification of this from Pat Boran of Dedalus in the comments

2 comments:

PB said...

Thanks for the interest in and mention of our forthcoming prose volume on Irish potry, Flowing, Still. Just to clarify, however, Flowing, Still is not a reissue of Watching the River Flow, (Poetry Ireland, Éigse Éireann, 1999) but of the introductory essays originally published in that anthology, plus some more recent essays to bring the book more or less up to date. Because the original essays each covered a ten-year period and each referenced 10 significant poems from each of those periods, the requirement for the newer essays was that they too should be overviews of one kind or another, which greatly narrowed down the work which might be considered. Disappointingly, comparatively few Irish women poets would seem to have produced such overview essays in recent years (the byline for the book is Irish Poets on Irish Poetry), or at least essays which had not already been collected elsewhere. However, women poets and their work of course feature prominently in the book. Sinead Morrissey, Mary Montague, Áine Ní Ghlinn and Catriona O'Reilly are just some of the poets whose importance in recent Irish poetry is strongly reflected in the new material. Where Flowing, Still sets out a series of overviews (on the lines of the original anthology), Dedalus will produce in the near future a partner volume in which a somewhat larger number of Irish poets, both male and female, well-known and emerging, will be invited to respond to the work of a favourite poet, Irish or otherwise, usefully enlarging the notion of poetic inheritance and influence on a poetic tradition which has long been outward-looking and perhaps more adventurous than is often acknowledged. Though it is relatively rare for such prose explorations to come from a small Irish literary press (not least because of limited resources), it is hoped that these two volumes will together help to provide a fair introduction to the what we believe is the wealth, strength and diversity of Irish poetry at this time. (Pat Boran, Editor, Dedalus Press)

Group 8 said...

Hi Pat, thanks for the clarification and info on the new book. I'll definitely buy it when it's out, most probably at Cúirt, so make sure Charlie Byrne's have a stack for their Town Hall shop!
If you are looking for poets/essayists for the partner volume, I'd love to contribute.
Beir bua,
Nuala