Wake Forest University Press

Irish Poetry

John Montague - Drunken Sailor (paperback)

"Less strict than British verse, more formal than American, Montague poems take a great variety of forms — imagistic description, dramatic monologues, elegies, litanies, quest romance all appear in the Drunken Sailor.... There are many measured and measuring allusions to the late great Yeats in Drunken Sailor, but this best thing ["Last Court"] is simply great late Montague." Adrian Frazier, Irish Times

In Drunken Sailor, Montague explores the political divide in his native County Tyrone, his own rural Catholic upbringing, the changing face of modern Ireland, the landscape of Ireland as historical palimpsest, and his own fascination with the sea. Many of these themes are familiar to readers of Montague, but here they are handled with the amplitude and unhurried artistry of one deeply practiced in his craft. In this volume the poet grapples with mortality, his own and others', creating images that haunt the imagination.

$11.95
2005   80 pages
paperback
ISBN 978-1-930630-19-2