The sixth edition of this major modern poetic sequence concludes with a revised and expanded section of notes. Since its publication in 1972, The Rough Field has been praised as the most significant attempt in poetry to understand Northern Ireland's troubled history. The New York Review of Books called it a "kind of 'state of the nation' poem… astonishingly successful; moving, too, and as soundly crafted as the rosewood fiddle which seems to play with mourning sweetness in its margins." With notes by Thomas Dillon Redshaw

from Home Again

…
Ancient Ireland, indeed! I was reared by her bedside,
The rune and the chant, evil eye and averted head.
Fomorian fierceness of family and local feud.
Gaunt figures of fear and of friendliness,
For years they trespassed on my dreams,
Until once, in a standing circle of stones,
I felt their shadows pass

Into that dark permanence of ancient forms.

$11.95 paperback
ISBN 1-930630-21-2
ISBN13 978-1-930630-21-5

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