Böcker av Paul Durcan

A new selection of Paul Durcan's finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday'He has written immortal poems. I revere him' Michael LongleyFor fifty years the poet Paul Durcan has explored and questioned a world both real and imagined.Steeped in the goings-on of Ireland and preoccupied with its concerns, he has delighted, enriched and unsettled his readers. His prodigious output of more than twenty collections bursts with poems that are courageously personal and passionately spiritual - a body of work that contains multitudes.'The great enemy of art is the ego' says Durcan. 'It keeps getting in the way. One needs the ego to disappear so that I become you; I become the people walking up and down the street.'First published in 1967, Durcan remains the most of companionable of poets. His vivacity and ability to surprise has never been clearer than in this new selection of eighty of his finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday.EDITED BY NIALL MACMONAGLEWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY COLM TOIBIN

Paul Durcan examines the work and impact of Irish poets Anthony Cronin, Michael Hartnett and Harry Clifton and places them in a European context. He focuses on Cronin's The End of the Modern World, Hartnett's Sibelius in Silence and Clifton's Vaucluse in this insightful volume.

Paul Durcan has been at the heart of Irish cultural life for 30 years and his poetry has acquired a huge international following.

'Thank you, O golden mother, / For giving me a life,' says Paul Durcan in this brilliant new collection, a poignant tribute to 'the first woman I ever knew'.

In the first part are poems of great satirical comedy and also of great passion and indignation, and in the second part, poems about the break-up of a marriage so intense they would hurt if they weren't also possessed of the healing gifts of truthfulness and humour.

The poems are printed in the order he originally intended, and the volume concluded with six poems from his very first collaborative collection, Endsville (1967), with Brian Lynch.

Paul Durcan never imagined he would be clasped by a woman again, but life is full of surprises! After all, would it surprise you to learn that at the US Ambassador's Residence in Dublin his libido almost destroyed the Peace Process?

First published in 1993, this contains the poet's own selection of his life's work.