Customer Reviews (1)

Get this book! It's worth every cent!
In his native Ireland, connaisseurs regard Mahon's poetry as superior to Seamus Heaney's, and why Mahon's works are so little known is a mystery to me. Maybe it is because he is not interested in the merely picturesque aspects of Ireland, and also because he has broken free of that country at least outwardly. Finally, there is almost always a sense of impending apocalypse in Mahon's poetry, which some people may feel unable to stomach. As a matter of fact, this poetry reminded my of W.G. Sebald's prose. In both cases a wide learning helps the speaker understand the details of a world gone wrong; both Sebald's and Mahon's works seem to be dominated by a feeling of grief.

Colleagues and critics acknowledge Mahon's rank among the finest poets of our time ("work of the highest order" Seamus Heaney; "real mastery" W.S. Mervin). What matters to me, however, is that he is by far my favorite poet now writing in English.

Of course I would like to quote a few lines now to give you an idea of what Mahon's poetry can do, but Mahon's oeuvre is so rich and diverse that the following verses will inevitably give you a wrong impression. Mahon wrote them in the early seventies, when the so-called "Troubles" had torn apart his native Northern Ireland:

"And I step ashore in a fine rain / To a city so changed / By five years of war / I scarcely recognize / The places I grew up in, / The faces that try to explain. // But the hills are still the same / Grey-blue above Belfast. / Perhaps if I'd stayed behind / And lived it bomb by bomb / I might have grown up at last / And learnt what is meant by home." ... Read more

Product Description
Derek Mahon is one of the leading poets of his time, both in Ireland and beyond, famously offering a perspective that is displaced from as much as grounded in his native country. From prodigious beginnings to prolific maturity, he has been, through thick and thin, through troubled times and other, a writer profoundly committed to the art of poetry and the craft of making verse. He has also been no-less a committed reviser of his work, believing the poem to be more than a record in verse, but a work of art never finished.

This virtuoso study by Hugh Haughton provides the most comprehensive account imaginable of Mahon's oeuvre. Haughton's brilliant writing always serves and illuminates the poetry, yielding extraordinary insights on almost every page. The poetry, its revisions and reception, are the subject here, but so thorough is the approach that what is offered also amounts indirectly to an intellectual biography of the poet and with it an account of Northern Irish poetry vital to our understanding of the times. ... Read more

Product Description
As the first major book-length study of the poetry of Derek Mahon, this volume of fourteen essays represents a long overdue account and assessment of one of the foremost living English-language poets. In considering the central issues of Mahon's poetry--the relation between poetry and politics, the conflicting claims of art and nature, the representation of gender, the importance of place, the poet's response to violence, and his characteristic techniques of displacement, ambiguity, and intertextuality--these essays also represent a variety of critical approaches to the poetry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Major Work from a Major Poet
A friend picked this up for me in Dublin.It's a shame it's so hard to get this book here in the U.S.Mahon is one of the greats, and this is a major new work.It is every bit as compelling and masterful as his prior work.Strongly recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A fascinating rendition
Euripides' "The Bacchae" is an enigmatic play, written late in the author's career, and existing only in one manuscript with a fewlacunae.Modern readers (and producers) often interpret it as aproto-hippie propaganda piece:control-freak Pentheus gets his comeuppancefrom the god of wine and dance, Dionysus.But it's far more complex thanthat:Dionysus is a force of nature and not a human being, and the revengehe takes on Pentheus' family is (by human standards) cruellydisproportionate to the offense.I've seen the play done as everythingfrom a "Hair"-influenced musical to a flamenco performance (whichwas surprisingly effective!), and I feel it still hasn't given up all itssecrets.
Mahon's rendition is memorable:his language spans a range oftones and emotions, from irony and wry humor to the beautifully expressedchoruses and the pathos of the final scene, and this conveys the"feel" of the play far better than the usual all-too-dignified"exact" translations.His anachronisms are annoying at times,and he can't resist the occasional Irish touch (e.g., he uses"ceili" to describe the Maenads' dances).Also, I have doubtsabout the stageworthiness of his musical suggestions (everything from folkto rock 'n' roll), but he leaves the director a lot of latitude.I feelthat Mahon's language would work well on the stage, which isn't true of allpoet-playwrights!All in all, this is a well-written work, and a pleasureto read, too. ... Read more

Product Description
Derek Mahon is considered by his peers and readers to be the most remarkable poet of his generation. He was born in 1941 in Belfast, and educated at Trinity, Dublin. He lived for some years in London, and now lives both in Dublin and New York. 'The Hunt by Night' was considered by Seamus Heaney on publication to be Mahon's 'most exuberant and authoritative single volume to date...There is a copiousness and excitement about these poems that is to be found only in work of the highest order.' This book is intended for poets, readers. admirers (many) of Mahon's work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Less than the Sum of Its Parts
A raggle-taggle collection of reviews and essays with no real unifying theme or drive - except a relative interest in matters Irish - this book has nevertheless done that most rare and testing of things in a collection of book reviews - it has persuaded me to buy not one but two of the books under review. Mahon's several pieces on McNeice make that out of fashion figure of interest to the non-Irish and non afficionado. There is a fun profile of Anthony Burgess and much memorabilia of literary youth at Trinity etc. There is everywhere an urbane sense of what the literary life is and how such and such a writer may have come to such or such a bad end or occasional lapse. Solid book reviews which are rewarding to dip into and a civilised, gentle tone throughout. How many essay collections can you say that of? ... Read more

Product Description
This edition is limited to 500 numbered copies of which nos. 1-250 are signed by the poet ... Read more