Collected Poems 1952–2000 | Richard Murphy
$18.95 – $28.95
Richard Murphy emerged in the 1950s with John Montague and Thomas Kinsella as one of the three major poets in the new Irish poetic renaissance. His second volume Sailing to an Island, which was a Poetry Book Society Choice, was followed by The Battle of Aughrim, widely acclaimed as one of the most powerful historical narratives of the twentieth century. Although the next volumes range from his signature setting of the grey stone and surging sea of Ireland’s western islands to vivid Eastern settings, they offer a renewed lyricism, in the poignant narrative and descriptive poems of High Island, the colorful psychological portrayals of childhood in Ceylon, and the sonnet sequence that comprises The Price of Stone. Playfully and candidly, this later work gives voice to structures as varied as Kylemore Castle, a tinker’s wattle tent, Nelson’s Pillar, and a beehive cell in which a woman gives birth alone on High Island.
The Collected Poems is a major achievement, not only because on page after page it reveals poetry of exceptional insight and passion, but also because it brings into focus the wide poetic range—geographical, formal, and tonal—of which Richard Murphy is master.
Shortlisted for the Irish Times Literature Prize in Poetry, 2001
Reviews
“Where should one begin to impress the importance of Murphy for anglophone poetry in general? . . . With the publication of this book the time has come to instate Richard Murphy as one of the most important Irish poets of the last century.”
– Sewanee Review
“His poems, often in terza rima, rhymed quatrains and septets, and sonnets, are for lovers of traditional poetry, for thoughtful readers with a sense of history and a feel for the beauty of the English language. . . . This is a superior book of poetry.”
– The Philadelphia Inquirer
“. . . [He has] a Yeats-like mastery over theme and poetic form as the way and the means for transforming personal experience into ‘the artifice of eternity.’ . . . Murphy’s poems register with a cumulative weight and density approaching the monolithic. This publication of his Collected Poems begins to give this poet long-deserved recognition.”
– Boston Review
Description
Richard Murphy emerged in the 1950s with John Montague and Thomas Kinsella as one of the three major poets in the new Irish poetic renaissance. His second volume Sailing to an Island, which was a Poetry Book Society Choice, was followed by The Battle of Aughrim, widely acclaimed as one of the most powerful historical narratives of the twentieth century. Although the next volumes range from his signature setting of the grey stone and surging sea of Ireland’s western islands to vivid Eastern settings, they offer a renewed lyricism, in the poignant narrative and descriptive poems of High Island, the colorful psychological portrayals of childhood in Ceylon, and the sonnet sequence that comprises The Price of Stone. Playfully and candidly, this later work gives voice to structures as varied as Kylemore Castle, a tinker’s wattle tent, Nelson’s Pillar, and a beehive cell in which a woman gives birth alone on High Island.
The Collected Poems is a major achievement, not only because on page after page it reveals poetry of exceptional insight and passion, but also because it brings into focus the wide poetic range—geographical, formal, and tonal—of which Richard Murphy is master.
Shortlisted for the Irish Times Literature Prize in Poetry, 2001
Reviews
“Where should one begin to impress the importance of Murphy for anglophone poetry in general? . . . With the publication of this book the time has come to instate Richard Murphy as one of the most important Irish poets of the last century.”
– Sewanee Review
“His poems, often in terza rima, rhymed quatrains and septets, and sonnets, are for lovers of traditional poetry, for thoughtful readers with a sense of history and a feel for the beauty of the English language. . . . This is a superior book of poetry.”
– The Philadelphia Inquirer
“. . . [He has] a Yeats-like mastery over theme and poetic form as the way and the means for transforming personal experience into ‘the artifice of eternity.’ . . . Murphy’s poems register with a cumulative weight and density approaching the monolithic. This publication of his Collected Poems begins to give this poet long-deserved recognition.”
– Boston Review
Additional information
| Publication date: | 2001 |
|---|---|
| Pages | 216 |
| Binding: |
