Praise in which I live and move and have my being - Paul Durcan

9781846556272

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Title
Praise in which I live and move and have my being
Author
Paul Durcan
format
Hardback
Publisher
Harvill Secker
Language
English
UK Publication Date
20120329

Paul Durcan's twenty-second collection finds Monsieur le Pote on the road in Paris, New York City, Chicago, Brisbane, and Achill Island, meditating upon the sanctuary of home and what it means to feel truly at home.

Regarded by many as the great poet of contemporary Ireland, Durcan is on top form here as he contemplates the fall of the Celtic Tiger, while railing against bankers and 'bonus boys'. There are poems of love lost and won, and poems in memory of friends and relatives who have passed on, but there is also joy to be found in the birth of a grandson, and there is praise, too, for the modest heroism of truckers, air traffic controllers and nurses, those 'slim, sturdy, buxom nourishers' of fallen mankind. If for Sartre 'hell is other people', for Durcan 'heaven is other people, especially women'.

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Paul Durcan was born in Dublin in 1944. His first book, Endsville (1967), has been followed by more than twenty others, including The Berlin Wall Caf (a Poetry Book Society Choice in 1985), Daddy, Daddy (winner of the Whitbread Award for Poetry in 1990), Crazy About Women (1991), A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems (1993), Give Me Your Hand (1994), Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (1999), The Art of Life (2004), The Laughter of Mothers (2007), Life is a Dream: 40 Years Reading Poems 1967-2007 (2009), Praise in Which I Live and Move and Have My Being (2012), and The Days of Surprise (2015). In 2001 Paul Durcan received a Cholmondeley Award. He was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2004 to 2007. He was conferred with a DLitt by Trinity College Dublin in 2009 and by University College Dublin in 2011. In 2014 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Irish Book Award. He is a member of Aosdna.

"A book filled with contemporary life, but the poems also have a way of evoking enduring human values, in all their odd tones and surprising textures, as much as the contemporary moment"
Guardian Books of the Year - Colm Tibn

"Whatever the subject, venue or city, and no matter how bitter the moment, Durcan has wit, charm and spark. Poetry is his - and our - rescuer... These poems are a pleasure to read"
Observer

"A poetry of encounter, of sidelong glances and exuberant strangeness. There will be many pleasures here for Durcan fans and aficionados"
Irish Times - Paul Perry

"Superbly composed, uneasy, desperately witty and often startling. At his best, which he often surpasses in this book, he produces what blue, green and red make when mixed: a pure white light, the noble glow of true praise. In contemporary literature, and not just Irish poetry, Durcan is flying high. Noble may yet become Nobel"
Irish Independent - Brian Lynch

"One of the few genuinely popular poets of recent decades, a vital presence in Irish culture...entertaining, edgy, and with enough ironic self-awareness to make from such quirky subjects more than superficial reflections on his life and times. Durcan is the recording angel who preserves what could be lost, who brings tidings of change in some of the darker moments of history"
Guardian

Type
BOOK
Country of Publication
England
Number of Pages
157

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