John Montague: A Poet’s Life
$32.95
This title is available for pre-order and will ship on/around the publication date in November 2026.
In the late twentieth century, Irish poetry achieved an historic quality, a golden era to compare with the verse of the Elizabethan and the Romantic periods. A Poet’s Life is the definitive biography of one of the first and foremost poets in this golden generation, John Montague. Inspired by the examples of Yeats and Joyce, he consciously educated himself to play a central role in the self-understanding of his people.
Ahead of the public recognition of such issues, Montague wrote personally about abortion, divorce, alcoholism, domestic violence, and clerical abuse in education. His poetry offered to others release from a painful past. Out of where he was most hurt, his best work issued. When the Troubles erupted in his home province, he was to the forefront in engaging with events directly, sometimes in a cross-community effort with fellow poets of the other faith. This record of his life is also an intimate, familial account of modern Irish poetry and its precision, documentary basis, and reliable chronology. It is sure to become a vital conduit into a body of poetry that will never be forgotten.
Already a highly lauded biographer, Adrian Frazier was a close acquaintance of Montague for more than forty years. In this fully authorized narrative that is clear, candid, and marbled with humor, Frazier reveals the sources of poetry in Montague’s life and traces the progress of his style from book to book. Based on Montague’s archive of private papers, and informed by the counsel of the poet’s lifelong friends, partners, and fellow poets, this is a monumental work of Irish literary biography, sure to be a classic of the genre.
Praise for A Poet’s Life
“Frazier’s biography is the most vivid, readable and rewarding portrait of an Irish poet to appear since Roy Foster’s magisterial life of Yeats, and will do much to keep Montague’s work alive.” —David Wheatley, Literary Review
“A judicious, unfussy and compelling portrait … It gives a rounded picture of the poet and the man, and brings you back to the moving poems of a true Irish master.” — Paul Perry, Irish Independent
“Adrian Frazier’s Life of John Montague will be welcomed by readers who remember the man, by those who value the work, as well as by a wider public that is interested in the questions thrown up by the enterprise of literary biography.” — Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Poetry Ireland Review
“This is a no-holds-barred biography … Frazier acknowledges the cost of a life turned ‘into the achievement of poetry,’ yet he reminds us that it is because of the poetry that the biography exists.” — Clíona Ní Ríordáin, The Irish Times
“rigorous, empathetic, eloquent and constantly surprising.” — Roy Foster
Please note: this book is available for pre-order and will ship on/around the publication date in November 2026.
Customers in Ireland, the UK, and the EU: This title is available from The Lilliput Press here.
Description
This title is available for pre-order and will ship on/around the publication date in November 2026.
In the late twentieth century, Irish poetry achieved an historic quality, a golden era to compare with the verse of the Elizabethan and the Romantic periods. A Poet’s Life is the definitive biography of one of the first and foremost poets in this golden generation, John Montague. Inspired by the examples of Yeats and Joyce, he consciously educated himself to play a central role in the self-understanding of his people.
Ahead of the public recognition of such issues, Montague wrote personally about abortion, divorce, alcoholism, domestic violence, and clerical abuse in education. His poetry offered to others release from a painful past. Out of where he was most hurt, his best work issued. When the Troubles erupted in his home province, he was to the forefront in engaging with events directly, sometimes in a cross-community effort with fellow poets of the other faith. This record of his life is also an intimate, familial account of modern Irish poetry and its precision, documentary basis, and reliable chronology. It is sure to become a vital conduit into a body of poetry that will never be forgotten.
Already a highly lauded biographer, Adrian Frazier was a close acquaintance of Montague for more than forty years. In this fully authorized narrative that is clear, candid, and marbled with humor, Frazier reveals the sources of poetry in Montague’s life and traces the progress of his style from book to book. Based on Montague’s archive of private papers, and informed by the counsel of the poet’s lifelong friends, partners, and fellow poets, this is a monumental work of Irish literary biography, sure to be a classic of the genre.
Praise for A Poet’s Life
“Frazier’s biography is the most vivid, readable and rewarding portrait of an Irish poet to appear since Roy Foster’s magisterial life of Yeats, and will do much to keep Montague’s work alive.” —David Wheatley, Literary Review
“A judicious, unfussy and compelling portrait … It gives a rounded picture of the poet and the man, and brings you back to the moving poems of a true Irish master.” — Paul Perry, Irish Independent
“Adrian Frazier’s Life of John Montague will be welcomed by readers who remember the man, by those who value the work, as well as by a wider public that is interested in the questions thrown up by the enterprise of literary biography.” — Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Poetry Ireland Review
“This is a no-holds-barred biography … Frazier acknowledges the cost of a life turned ‘into the achievement of poetry,’ yet he reminds us that it is because of the poetry that the biography exists.” — Clíona Ní Ríordáin, The Irish Times
“rigorous, empathetic, eloquent and constantly surprising.” — Roy Foster
Please note: this book is available for pre-order and will ship on/around the publication date in November 2026.
Customers in Ireland, the UK, and the EU: This title is available from The Lilliput Press here.
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