Selected Poems Seán Ó Ríordáin, Frank Sewell

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Series:: The Margellos World Republic of Letters
Format:: Hardback
Publication date:: 11 Feb 2014
ISBN:: 9780300190588
Imprint:: Yale University Press
Dimensions:: 288 pages: 197 x 127 x 25mm
Sales territories:: World

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The first bilingual volume of poems by leading Irish twentieth-century poet Seán Ó Ríordáin

In the mid-twentieth century, a new generation of poets writing in Irish emerged, led by the young Seán Ó Ríordáin, among others. Ó Ríordáin’s work has stood the test of time well, and he continues to engage today’s Irish readers and writers. This well-rounded selection of poems brings most of Ó Ríordáin’s works to English-language readers for the first time. The poems appear in their original Irish alongside English translations by some of Ireland's leading poets. Also included for the first time in English is Ó Ríordáin’s essay What Is Poetry?, considered an extraordinary touchstone of critical insight for poets and literary commentators.

The volume reflects Ó Ríordáin’s seven main concerns: poetry and its place in the artist’s life; the plural self; the relationship between the individual and society; gender relations; the nature of animals; Ireland, its language and culture; and mortality.

Seán Ó Ríordáin (1916–1977) completed four volumes of poetry, the last—Tar Éis Mo Bháis—published posthumously. He also wrote powerful opinion pieces for the Irish Times during his later years. Frank Sewell is a poet, translator, critic, and academic.

“Selected Poems belatedly introduces to a wider audience one of the great modern European poets.”—David Wheatley, Times Literary Supplement

‘Yale and Frank Sewell have created a serious memorial to one survivor poet, a soul of unbridled imagination.’—The Irish Examiner

'Many of Ó Ríordáin’s best-loved poems, and some lesser-known works, are given a jolt of newness in their unfamiliar cloak of English.'—Róisín Ní Ghairbhí, The Irish Times