Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology

Rating:
Summary: A near-model anthology
Review: I use this book, together with Paul Muldoon's Contemporary Irish Poetry and Fallon/Mahon's Contemporary Irish Poetry as texts for Adult Education.Crotty's book has 47 poets and gives a short insightful introduction to every poet. It is a wide-ranging book, including 3 modernist poets, 5 poets who write in Irish--for which there are sensitive translations by Crotty himself as well as Muldoon and Heaney. Most space is given to Muldoon, Heaney, Kavanagh, MacNeice, Kinsella, Durcan, Clarke, O Riordáin, and Ní Dhomhnaill in that order. The poems are generally well chosen. Ciaran Carson is represented, and the other fine young poet in Irish Cathal O Searcaigh. There is the good humor of Durcan, Duhig and McDonald. My students feel warmly about the book, and are writing surprisingly good poems of their own as response to it.