Selected Poems
By (Author) Patrick Kavanagh
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
22nd May 2000
27th April 2000
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
821.914
Paperback
256
Width 129mm, Height 199mm, Spine 15mm
192g
Published in order of first publication as far as possible, this selection ranges from initial offerings such as 'Tinker's Wife' and 'Inniskeen Road- July Evening' to his tragic masterpiece 'The Great Hunger' (1942) and his celebratory later verse, 'To Hell with Common Sense' and 'Come Dance with Kitty Stobling', which show his increasing comic verve and detachment. The first comprehensive selection of Kavanagh's poetry to be published, this volume offers a timely reassessment of a poet unfairly neglected outside Ireland.
One of the major figures in the modern Irish poetic canon, Patrick Kavanagh (1904-67) was a post-colonial poet who released Anglo-Irish verse from its prolonged obsession with history, ethnicity and national politics. His poetry, written in an uninhibited vernacular style, focused on the 'common and banal' aspects of contemporary life.