Praise in Which I Live and Move and Have My Being

A major new collecion from one of Ireland's leading poets: moving, funny and wise. Paul Durcan's twenty-second collection finds Monsieur le Poète 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. Regarded by many as the great poet of contemporary Ireland, Durcan is on top form here as he contemplates the fall of the Celtic Tiger, while railing against bankers and 'bonus boys'. There are poems of love lost and won, and poems in memory of friends and relatives who have passed on, but there is also joy to be found in the birth of a grandson, and there is praise, too, for the modest heroism of truckers, air traffic controllers and nurses, those 'slim, sturdy, buxom nourishers' of fallen mankind. If for Sartre 'hell is other people', for Durcan 'heaven is other people, especially women'.

Paul Durcan is one of Ireland's foremost poets. His first book, Endsville, has been followed by more than 20 others, including The Berlin Wall Café (a Poetry Book Society Choice), Daddy, Daddy (winner of the Whitbread Award for Poetry), A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems, Cries of an Irish Caveman: New Poems, The Art of Life, and The Laughter of Mothers. In 2009 he published a selection of his work from the previous 40 years in one volume, Life Is a Dream.