Blog
Paula Meehan: Rebel with a Cause
Paula Meehan, born in Dublin in 1955, spent much of her childhood in England before finishing her primary school education at Dublin’s Central Model Girls’ School in Gardiner Street. She began her secondary school education at St. Michael’s Holy Faith Covent in Finglas, but her time there was short lived. Meehan was expelled from the…
Continue ReadingWhat Does This Mean for Writing?
This week at the Press, we’ve all been reading Alexandra Alter’s recent article in The Wall Street Journal on Penguin’s upcoming publication, Chopsticks, which is an enhanced e-book that combines literature with digital photo albums, video clips, and audio clips. Towards the end of the article, Alter shares an interesting quote from the book’s author, Jessica Anthony, on “the future of narrative”…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Studying the Language” by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Studying the Language On Sundays I watch the hermits coming out of their holes Into the light. Their cliff is as full as a hive. They crowd together on warm shoulders of rock Where the sun has been shining, their joints crackle. They begin to talk after a while. I listen to their accents, they…
Continue ReadingTravel
Lara Marlowe, author and Washington correspondent to The Irish Times, stated in an interview with the Irish Echo that you’re Irish if “you delight in language, enjoy good company and never lose touch with the sadness that runs through all things.” Although Marlowe is American, she maintains a residence in Ireland and is a world-traveled journalist. In the interview, Marlowe…
Continue ReadingPraise for Michael Longley
Recently, The Boston Globe named Michael Longley’s A Hundred Doors as one of the best poetry books of 2011. “This year Wake Forest University Press has delivered A Hundred Doors by Irish poet Michael Longley, who has yet to receive the American acclaim surrounding many of his contemporaries. In this collection, readers are transported to…
Continue ReadingJohn Montague receives honorary doctorate from University College Dublin
John Montague was one of five holders of the Ireland Chair of Poetry to receive an honorary doctorate from University College Dublin on Bloomsday. Brian Donnelly, of the UCD School of English, Drama & Film, spoke of how Montague’s poetry reflects the passion and determination of the Irish. “… It has been his vocation to…
Continue ReadingThe Art of a Cover
It’s traditional for the portrait of authors to be put on covers of compilation volumes of their work. Brendan Kennelly, despite his “notes of disgust, fierce satire, sardonic bitterness” looks fairly happy on the cover of his new selected as a man who has grown into his career as a poet and grown into his…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: “Pipistrelle” by Harry Clifton
Pipistrelle At no point, in the whole of that northern night, Was there total eclipse of light, Only a yellow streak, low down in the sky Against which little squeaks, subliminal cries Would dash themselves, so to speak— The pipistrelles. Hours later, dawn would break To the sound of illegitimate shots In the field nearby….
Continue ReadingLil’ Bit of Lit. Crit.
Literary critic William Logan isn’t the easiest on poets. Ever. But we agreed with something he said in his recent New Criterion review of Michael Longley’s latest book, A Hundred Doors, which WFUP published last May. Logan writes: “Longley’s father won the Military Cross in World War I (a medal equivalent to the Silver Star). The…
Continue ReadingArts and Culture: Alice Maher and Irish Readers
When Irish artist Alice Maher was commissioned to make drawings for the National Library of Ireland, she thought, naturally, about readers. Combine that with her interest in identities, particularly gendered identities, and you have her series, Lectores Mirabiles (Wonderful Readers). She gave us permission to use Lectores Mirabiles V for the cover of The Wake…
Continue Reading