Two of Dublin’s most respected voices share the stage and their literary heritage in this double-header of contemporary Irish poetry.
Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin’s six volumes of poetry are characterised by an enigmatic otherworldliness and economy of language. Her awards include the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and the O’Shaughnessy Award of the Irish- American Cultural Institute, an honour which placed Chuilleanáin ‘among the very best poets of her generation.’ A new Gallery Press / Faber retrospective underlines her status as a major literary figure.
Harry Clifton follows in the footsteps of Seamus Heaney and Derek Mahon as the latest recipient of the coveted Irish Times Poetry Now Award. The winning collection – Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks – is the poet’s first in 14 years. Praised for its ‘masterful fluency’ (Irish Times) and ‘limitless cultural curiosity’ (C.K.Williams), it’s a dazzling meditation on human happiness in a secular age. ‘There is something second-sighted about Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s work. Her poems see things anew, in a rinsed and dreamstruck light.’
Seamus Heaney ‘Arguably the first great work of Irish poetic post-modernism.’
Irish Times on Harry Clifton’s Secular Eden