A Little Book of Hours

A Little Book of Hours begins in a sermon by John Donne: ‘No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.’ The Irish poet John F. Deane takes a period of time and sifts through it for meaning and purpose. His new collection explores how each human being shares in an integrated universe, though our world is variously broken by individual conflict, wars and natural violence. Beginning with an account of the simplest-seeming island people and their troubled though productive lives, A Little Book of Hours continues with a series of poems about King David, great poet and warrior, which consider the ineffectuality of war and the place of poetry in building towards a just society. The title sequence journeys through Europe in search of sacred truth, emulating the journey of Tobias attended by the angel. Deane’s book is a meditation in which the Christian vision is seen to penetrate and bind all of humanity and nature.