Wake Forest University Press

Irish Poetry

John Montague - The Rough Field - 6th ed. (paperback)

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.
 

"Montague's Rough Field is a remarkable primer for those who would truly understand the division of Ireland today." James Coleman, The Compass

"John Montague's The Rough Field is a kind of 'state of the nation' poem, built up of visions and glimpses of locality, legend, and history, and as such it is astonishingly successful; moving, too, and as soundly crafted as the rosewood fiddle which seems to play with mourning sweetness in the margins." John Bayley, The New York Review

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
2005   96 pages
paperback
ISBN 978-1-930630-21-5