80 at 80 by Paul Durcan

80 at 80 by Paul Durcan

An Irish Times Bestseller: a new selection of Paul Durcan's finest poems. 'He has written immortal poems. I revere him' Michael Longley For fifty years the poet Paul Durcan has explored and questioned a world both real and imagined. Steeped in the goings-on of Ireland and preoccupied with its concerns, he has delighted, enriched and unsettled his readers. His prodigious output of more than twenty collections bursts with poems that are courageously personal and passionately spiritual – a body of work that contains multitudes. ‘The great enemy of art is the ego’ says Durcan. ‘It keeps getting in the way. One needs the ego to disappear so that I become you; I become the people walking up and down the street.’ First published in 1967, Durcan remains the most of companionable of poets. His vivacity and ability to surprise has never been clearer than in this new selection of eighty of his finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday. EDITED BY NIALL MACMONAGLE WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY COLM TOIBIN

His is a once-in-a-generation talentHe has written immortal poems. I revere him. -- Michael Longley
To have heard him read adds another pleasure to the reading of his work – but the voice speaks clearly on the page in poems of harrowing intimacy, politics and love -- Carol Ann Duffy
Durcan is a God. He can break your heart in supermarket or petrol station. He is unafraid, masterful and exactly what this world needs more of: wild abandon, wild love and sheer mad genius -- Alice Sebold
The world is all the richer for this man's verse * Irish Independent *

Paul Durcan (Author)
Paul Durcan was born in Dublin in 1944. His first book, Endsville (1967), has been followed by more than twenty others, including The Berlin Wall Café (a Poetry Book Society Choice in 1985), Daddy, Daddy (winner of the Whitbread Award for Poetry in 1990), Crazy About Women (1991), A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems (1993), Give Me Your Hand (1994), Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (1999), The Art of Life (2004), The Laughter of Mothers (2007), Life is a Dream: 40 Years Reading Poems 1967–2007 (2009), Praise in Which I Live and Move and Have My Being (2012), and The Days of Surprise (2015). In 2001 Paul Durcan received a Cholmondeley Award. He was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2004 to 2007. He was conferred with a DLitt by Trinity College Dublin in 2009 and by University College Dublin in 2011. In 2014 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Irish Book Award. He is a member of Aosdána.

Niall MacMonagle (External Editor)
Niall MacMonagle is Ireland's most trusted commentator on poetry. He conceived and edited the bestselling Lifelinesseries in which public figures wrote about their favourite poems. For many years an English teacher at Wesley College, he lives in Dublin with his family.

Colm Toibin (Introducer)
Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of two novels, The South, which won The Irish Times/Aer Lingus Prize, and The Heather Blazing, which won the Encore Prize for the best second novel published in Britain in 1992, as well as two travel books, Homage to Barcelona and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe. He lives in Dublin.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781787304840
ISBN 10	1787304841
Title	80 at 80
Author	Paul Durcan
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2024-09-12
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable