University of Notre Dame Press Book of Irish American Poetry: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present

This is the first major anthology of Irish American poetry. It breaks new ground by collecting for the first time the work of over two hundred Irish American poets, as well as other American poets whose work enjoins Irish American themes. ""The Book of Irish American Poetry"" draws together the best and most representative poetry by Irish Americans and about Irish America that has been written over the past three hundred years. Daniel Tobin begins with poetry of the ""populist period"" (poets such as John Boyle O'Reilly), and moves to the work of Irish Americans who have made an indelible imprint on American poetry: Robinson Jeffers, Marianne Moore, Louise Bogan, John Berryman, Thomas McGrath, Robert Creeley, Frank O'Hara, Ted Berrigan, Galway Kinnell, and Alan Dugan, among others. The anthology concludes with distinctive poems by contemporary Irish Americans whose work is likely to stand the test of time, such as Tess Gallagher, Brendan Galvin, and Brigit Pegeen Kelly. ""The Book of Irish American Poetry"" recovers many poets who have been forgotten and places already notable figures in American poetry within the context of a distinctively Irish American tradition. This important work of literary scholarship will dominate the field for years to come. Review . . . A prodigious and remarkable work of literary scholarship. This anthology is far more than an original work of scholarship: it is a major act of recovery, which rescues from oblivion the work of important writers who have been the creators of the Irish American literary consciousness. Professor Tobin has achieved the invention of a whole new field. With publication of this anthology, we will finally understand both the scale and importance of Irish American poetry. --Eammon Wall, Jefferson Smurfit Professor of Irish Studies, University of Missouri-St. Louis . . . If the purpose of a good poetry anthology is to introduce readers to unfamiliar writers and reacquaint them with neglected masters, this one must be judged a raging success. Tobin does provide a meaningfully convivial context in which to engage, in close proximity, the work of Galway Kinnell, Billy Collins, and Paul Muldoon. They're good company, and there's plenty more where that came from. --Booklist "This handsome book, with its dust jacket reproduction of Hughson Hawley's Laying the Tracks at Broadway and 14th Street (ca. 1891), is unique in American anthology-making . . . . a major literary and critical achievement . . . it is basically a superb poetic treasury, just as suitable for one's home collection as for research libraries. Its hundreds of poems, full of lyricism, though veined with Celtic melancholy and the sense of the tragic, constitute versions of an historical and cultural tradition of enormous importance to America and still vigorous, proving that Irish American culture is more than just a good pub or a St. Patrick's Day parade." --Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture More than two hundred poets from the eighteenth century to now are represented in The Book of Irish American Poetry, some resurrected and restored, others seen anew from the perspective of Irish American studies, still others deservedly anthologized for the first time. Poet and editor Daniel Tobin demonstrates beyond question the length, depth, strength and variety of Irish American poetry. His anthology--complete with historical chronology, biographical and explanatory notes, and extensive bibliographies--is the first accurate map of a new territory. --Brendan Galvin, author of Habitat: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2005 ". . . an intelligent, imaginative collection that sheds new light on a literary tradition while highlighting exciting work that might otherwise go unnoticed. Definitive enough to belong on the book shelf of any scholar who teaches or writes about American poetry, it is also a marvelous read, a browsing treasure." --New Hibernia Review "Daniel Tobin's The Bo