PHANTOM GANG by Ciarán O'rourke
With lyric grace and meditative clarity, Phantom Gang offers a daring dissection of civilizational violence in a variety of contexts from the intimate atavisms and inequalities of Irish history to the insidious growth of the global Big Tech economy in the present day alongside deep, sensually delicate explorations of broken love and salvaged memories. Honouring the work of a range of writers and photographers, including John Clare (1793-1864), Martín Chambi (1891-1973), Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), and Gerda Taro (1910-1937), these poems unsettle the boundaries between past and present, elegy and tribute, folkloric remembrance and political reportage, interweaving each with all to create a compelling vision of a world in motion and a consciousness alive to change – as spectral voices and still-living presences seep “into the open echo-chamber / of poetry”, casting light on the inner and outer landscapes of the poet’s life in time. Following his acclaimed first collection, The Buried Breath, O’Rourke here expands and enriches the thematic concerns of his early work to accommodate new forms of portraiture and moral questioning, while further honing the “clean-boned” music of his poetic style, lit always by a profound emotional charge. Phantom Gang confirms O’Rourke as a leading new voice in Irish poetry.
A poet who approaches both the ancient and modern with the same insight and sensitivity, O’Rourke surely has a long and distinguished career ahead of himJessica Traynor, poet and critic
Ciarán O’Rourke was born in 1991 and took a degree in English and History at Trinity College, Dublin. He received a Masters in English and American Studies from Oxford in 2014, as well as a doctorate on William Carlos Williams at his alma mater in Dublin in 2019. His first collection, The Buried Breath, was published by The Irish Pages Press in 2018 and highly commended by the Forward Foundation for Poetry the following year. He currently lives in Galway.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781838201845 |
| ISBN 10 | 183820184X |
| Title | PHANTOM GANG |
| Author | Ciarán O'rourke |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | IRISH PAGES |
| Year published | 2022-08-15 |
| Number of pages | 128 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |