The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry: Volume IV

This book brings lesser-known Irish voices to an American audience. In this fourth volume, editor David Wheatley, himself an established poet and critic, has selected poetry by Trevor Joyce, Aidan Mathews, Peter McDonald, Ailbhe Darcy, and Ailbhe Ni Ghearbhuigh. Each section is introduced with an essay by Wheatley which offers some background, context, and critical illumination. As Wheatley writes in his preface, Irish poetry is a peregrine entity, making and manifesting itself in a wide variety of ways, in and out of Ireland, and as a book of Irish poetry edited by a Scotland-based Irishman and published in the US, this volume enters the marketplace from another angle again. The balance of power between Dublin, Belfast, London, and other traditional publishing centers is not a primary concern of this book, however. Instead, I sidestep questions of generational groups and territoriality to explore a series of related but distinct issues, as focused on these five poets’ distinguished bodies of work.