"This aptly titled collection by renowned Irish poet Montague equates emotion with knowing the proper words to express emotion. . . . Once these lewd origins are exposed, Montague's personal yet universal poems become angrier, but no less loving. One speaker reflects on quiet moments from a marriage's final days. The poet mourns a friend's suicide, along with his own inability to have cared more when she was alive. From love to divorce to death for lack of love to loneliness in old age, this volume is a veritable symphony."—Publishers Weekly
"In Mr. Montague's fine, firm poems, loving force is always made real by being felt as threatened by the angers of Ireland and of this Irishman."—The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
A leading light in the renaissance of Irish poetry, John Montague was born in Brooklyn and "returned" to County Tyrone at the age of four. After graduating from University College, Dublin, he worked as a journalist for the Irish Times before publishing Poisoned Lands, his first book of verse. Montague taught in French and American universities before taking a chair at University College, Cork, where he remained for 16 years. He now divides his time between his home in Cork and the United States, where he is a Distinguished Professor in the Writers Institute at SUNY-Albany.
December 1993