Bøker av Paul Durcan

A new selection of Paul Durcan's finest poems, published in celebration of his 80th birthday'He has written immortal poems. I revere him' Michael LongleyFor 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 MACMONAGLEWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY COLM TOIBIN

Paul Durcan has been at the heart of Irish cultural life for 30 years and his poetry has acquired a huge international following.

The first section describes an experience in Australia which provides a starting point for reassessing his past relationships and loves.

'Thank you, O golden mother, / For giving me a life,' says Paul Durcan in this brilliant new collection, a poignant tribute to 'the first woman I ever knew'.

In The Art of Life Paul Durcan takes us around County Mayo in his "filthy, two-door, bottle-green Opel Astra", stopping off at Westport and Achill Island, where he declares himself to be "globally sad", but "locally glad".

In the first part are poems of great satirical comedy and also of great passion and indignation, and in the second part, poems about the break-up of a marriage so intense they would hurt if they weren't also possessed of the healing gifts of truthfulness and humour.

The poems are printed in the order he originally intended, and the volume concluded with six poems from his very first collaborative collection, Endsville (1967), with Brian Lynch.

Paul Durcan's twenty-second collection finds Monsieur le Poete on the road in Paris, New York City, Chicago, Brisbane, and Achill Island, meditating upon the sanctuary of home and what it means to feel truly at home.

Paul Durcan never imagined he would be clasped by a woman again, but life is full of surprises! After all, would it surprise you to learn that at the US Ambassador's Residence in Dublin his libido almost destroyed the Peace Process?

For most of us Christmas is the season of huge helpings of good food, good drink, and with luck, good cheer, as the rituals of cracker-pulling, present-giving and happy or sulphurous family reunions fizzle and bang through the long afternoon.

First published in 1993, this contains the poet's own selection of his life's work.