O Westport In The Light Of Asia Minor - Softcover

Durcan, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860460879 ISBN 13: 9781860460876

Publisher: Harvill Press, 1997

Synopsis

O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor was first published in a tiny edition in Dublin in 1975. Paul Durcan's first published in a tiny edition in Dublin in 1975. Paul Durcan's first full-fledged collection displays an astonishingly mature visionary power. Shot through with the surrealism and heart-breaking comedy that have since become his hallmark, O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor won him the prestigious Patrick Kavanagh Award (1975).Writing in the first issue of the influential Irish Cyphers, the English poet David Wright remarked: "This is the real thing. One can't say more, or less, than that. Durcan's Poems affect me with the same amalgamations of recognition and insight—as revelations of what one knows without knowing it, concurrent testimonies as it were—that I find in the work of Patrick Kavanagh. It's a long time since I've felt so excited about a new poet."

About this title

About the Author:

Paul Durcan is one of Ireland's foremost poets. He was born in Dublin in 1944. His first book, Endsville, has been followed by more than twenty others, including The Berlin Wall Café, Daddy, Daddy, A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems, Cries of an Irish Caveman: New Poems, The Art of Life, and The Laughter of Mothers. In 2009 he published a selection of his work from the previous forty years in one volume, Life is a Dream. In 2001 Paul Durcan received a Cholmondeley Award. He was the Ireland Professor of Poetry 2004-2007. In 2009 he was conferred with an honorary degree by Trinity College, Dublin. He is a member of Aosdána.

Review:

"Paul Durcan... is one of the country's leading living poets... His strange, mesmerising voice wraps itself around every syllable and texture of his poems, wrapping the audience into its very spell, into the very grain of the text" -- Michael Cunningham * Irish Times * "The voice speaks clearly on the page in poems of harrowing intimacy, politics and love. He holds a mirror up to himself: but we can see ourselves over his shoulder, whoever we are" -- Carol Ann Duffy * Guardian * "This is the real thing. One can't say more, or less than that" -- David Wright * Cyphers *

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvill Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1860460879
• ISBN 13: 9781860460876
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80