O’Driscoll, Dennis.

Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams. Selected Prose Writings.

Oldcastle, County Meath, The Gallery Press, 2001. 14.5cm x 22cm. 360 pages. Hardcover/ Original cloth with original dustjacket in protective Mylar. Minor tear to dustjacket. Otherwise in very good condition with only minor signs of external wear on the dustjacket. Signed by the author on the title page.

Includes chapters on Irish poets – Valentin Iremonger, Thomas Kinsella, Padraic Fallon, Seamus Heaney, W. B. Yeats and Derek Mahony. It also contains chapters on poets outside of Ireland, such as John Berryman, Wislawa Szymborska and Charles Wright.

Dennis O’Driscoll (1 January 1954 – 24 December 2012) was an Irish poet, essayist, critic and editor. Regarded as one of the best European poets of his time, Eileen Battersby considered him “the lyric equivalent of William Trevor” and a better poet “by far” than Raymond Carver. Gerard Smyth regarded him as “one of poetry’s true champions and certainly its most prodigious archivist”. His book on Seamus Heaney is regarded as the definitive biography of the Nobel laureate.

Prior to the publication of his own poems, O’Driscoll published widely in journals and other print publications as both an essayist and poetry reviewer, for which he was very widely known. The Times Literary Supplement called him “one of Ireland’s most respected critics of poetry.” During this time he contributed upwards of two-hundred essays and reviews to various publications. O’Driscoll was published i Poetry, The London Magazine, Harvard Review, The Southern Review, Narrative Magazine, and Poetry Review, and was invited to give readings of his work in the Poetry Room in Harvard University, the Poetry International in London as well as the Hay-on-Wye and Cheltenham festivals of literature.

O’Driscoll wrote nine books of poetry, three chapbooks, and two collections of essays and reviews. The majority of his works were characterised by the use of economic language and the recurring motifs of mortality and the fragility of everyday life. As he aged, O’Driscoll’s works become more fluid and thoughtful as well as more frequent, and, according to some sources, like Alan Brownjohn of The Sunday Times for instance, even though he is younger than some of the poetic greats, “at best he is already their equal.” Originally published as a pamphlet his sonnet poem ‘The Bottom Line’ is considered his hallmark work.

In 1987, he temporarily became a writer-in-residence at the National University of Ireland. He has also served as editor of Poetry Ireland Review as well as two textbook anthologies entitled The Bloodaxe Book of Poetry, and Quote Poet Unquote.

O’Driscoll published a collection of literary criticism entitled Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams, which contain a selection of his essays and reviews. A new collection of his essays, The Outnumbered Poet from Gallery Press. Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney, an acclaimed 500-page volume of his interviews with 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature recipient, Seamus Heaney, was published in 2008. He served as a judge for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2009. He was editor of A Michael Hamburger Reader, published by Anvil Press in 2013. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: Catalogue Irish History Seven – Irish Literature – Poetry – Music – Theatre · Catalogue No.10 – International Literature · Irish Literature · Irish Literature – 20th Century · Irish Literature – Rare · Irish Poetry · Irish Poetry – Rare · Signed
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 30018AB

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