Wake Forest University Press

Irish Poetry

Michael Longley - Selected Poems (paperback)

This is Michael Longley’s own selection from thirty years of writing. It reveals the strength and coherence of an extraordinary body of work, which has been celebrated– in Britain and Ireland but also in the U.S. – for its lyric intensity, metaphysical wit, and thematic and formal range. Poet and critic Sean O’Brien writes, “His work indicates one of the gifts of the major poet, of making the one life speak for all, and its corollary, of seeming to be able to speak to anyone.”

“Longley has all the necessary gifts – precision, the celebrant’s tongue, and that touch of mystery that sets certain poets apart.” George Mackey Brown

“His measured rhythms, skilfully crafted metaphors and elaborate syntax always insist on poetry’s origins in ceremony, its powers to commemorate and dignify.” Mark Ford

“A keeper of the artistic estate, a custodian of griefs and wonders.” Seamus Heaney

$12.95
1999   132 pages
paperback
ISBN 978-0-916390-89-1