Post-Ireland? Essays on Contemporary Irish Poetry

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Written by established and emerging scholars, the essays in Post-Ireland? recognize both the perpetual search for a sustaining national concept of Ireland and a sense that long-established definitions no longer apply. The poets discussed herein include those who write in the shadow of Irish history cast by the Northern Troubles and those who feel that connections to a wider culture are equally, or more, significant. Migration (immigration and emigration, internal and external) continues to be an issue. If Ireland is post-nation, does it look toward Europe? America? Boston or Belgium? As Irish society has changed and continues to change, so too has Irish poetry entered into a time of transition. This volume of essays charts these transitions and sets coordinates for future critical endeavors.

Edited by Jefferson Holdridge and Brian Ó Conchubhair
Essays by Matthew Campbell, James Chandler, Ailbhe Darcy, John Dillon, Theo Dorgan, Eric Falci, Omaar Hena, Jefferson Holdridge, Florence Impens, Declan Kiberd, Ailbhe McDaid, Nathaniel Myers, Brian Ó Conchubhair, Kelly Sullivan, and Daniela Theinová
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Praise for Post-Ireland

“The lively and engaged essays in this timely collection assess how contemporary Irish poetry is being shaped by questions of personal, social and national identity in an Ireland that is becoming post-nationalist, post-Catholic, post-Gaelic and even post post-colonial. Contributors debate vigorously how far writing in a world in which cultural boundaries are increasingly fluid and permeable is a liberation or a dissipation of creative energy, and do so through a refreshingly wide range of approaches, including close readings of individual poems and poets, identification of particularly Irish literary effects, analysis of the contributions of emigrant and Irish-American writers, and tracing the ways in which the Irish cultural example has inspired poets from emerging nations. The book rises to the challenge of its title, and its vitality confirms that the demise of old Ireland more nearly resembles the death of the phoenix than the dodo.”
–John Kelly, St. John’s College Oxford

“Offering an impressive and inviting range of perspectives and topics, this collection is an excellent complement to Wake Forest’s fine list of Irish poetry publications and a major intervention in current poetry criticism. In their readings of how contemporary poets write ‘post-Ireland’ — whether as multilingual or migratory, through the religious or the ecological, in newly lyrical or elegiac forms — the contributors illuminate how these writers not only move beyond existing modes but also draw readers towards new pleasures and understanding.”
–Margaret Kelleher, University College Dublin

“Just as the political situation of postcolonial Ireland is put in relief when put in comparative perspective, as against the situations of other postcolonial or decolonizing countries, so cultural entity can and must be seen as hybrid. This essay collection productively interrogates many of the assumptions on which literary study is based. It is to be commended for not artificially imposing unity upon a divisive topic, but letting its contributors’ voices remain urgently, incorrigibly plural.”
–Magdalena Kay, Breac

“The finest essays in this collection demonstrate the capacity of Irish writers to work with apparent archaisms that are ‘usually framed by some more radical, modern consciousness,’ and it is this consciousness, these critics suggest, linked to a willingness to listen to the past, that will continue to give Irish poetry—for whatever definition of Irishness—continued power and vitality going forwards. … Post-Ireland? is a valuable contribution to the ongoing conversation about Irish poetry. With its generous coverage and thoughtful criticism, it adds to the body of scholarship on established poets and advances the discussion on poets who have received relatively little critical attention. Most helpfully, the discussions that the volume contains are open to continuation, revision, and challenge, inviting—rather than foreclosing—further contributions to the field.”
–Elizabeth Fredericks, New Hibernia Review