Selected Poems | Michael Longley

by Longley, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780916390891
• ISBN10: 0916390896
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-05-01
• Publisher: Wake Forest University Press

Summary

This is Michael Longley’s own selection from thirty years of writing. It reveals the strength and coherence of an extraordinary body of work, which has been celebrated—in Britain and Ireland, but also in the United States—for its lyric intensity, metaphysical wit, and thematic and formal range. Includes selections from No Continuing City (1969), An Exploded View (1973), Man Lying on a Wall (1976), The Echo Gate (1979), New Poems, Gorse Fires (1991), and The Ghost Orchid (1995).

Author Biography

Michael Longley was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1939. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and studied Classics at Trinity College. Strongly influenced by the classics, he has alluded to his love of Homer in many of his poems. Early in his career, Longley worked as a schoolteacher in Dublin, London, and Belfast. He founded the literary program in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and in 1970 he became the assistant director of that organization. In 2010, he was honored with the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of Aosdána, an affiliation for Irish artists. He is married to the critic Edna Longley and has three children. Michael Longley has written nine collections of poetry. Holding honorary doctorates from both Trinity College, Dublin, and Queen’s University, Belfast, Longley was awarded the prestigious Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2001. He has received numerous other awards for his work, including the American Irish Foundation Award, the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize, the Whitbread Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the International Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Ulster Tatler Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He served as the Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2007–2010.

Table of Contents

from No Continuing City (1963-68)
Epithalamion	1	(3)
No Continuing City	4	(2)
Circe	6	(1)
Persephone	7	(1)
Nausicaa	8	(1)
Narcissus	8	(1)
A Personal Statement	9	(3)
Freeze-up	12	(1)
The Osprey	13	(1)
The Hebrides	14	(4)
In Memoriam	18	(2)
Elegy for Fats Waller	20	(1)
Homage to Dr Johnson	21	(1)
Leaving Inishmore	22	(1)
Journey out of Essex	23	(1)
from An Exploded View (1968-72)
Caravan	24	(1)
Swans Mating	25	(1)
Galapagos	25	(1)
The Corner of the Eye	26	(2)
Badger	28	(2)
Casualty	30	(1)
Readings	31	(1)
Letter to Derek Mahon	32	(2)
Letter to Seamus Heaney	34	(2)
Wounds	36	(1)
In Memory of Gerard Dillon	37	(1)
The West	38	(1)
Skara Brae	39	(1)
Ghost Town	40	(1)
Three Posthumous Pieces	41	(1)
Alibis	42	(2)
Options	44	(2)
from Man Lying on a Wall (1972-75)
In Mayo	46	(2)
Flora	48	(1)
Landscape	49	(1)
Points of the Compass	50	(2)
Halcyon	52	(1)
Master of Ceremonies	53	(1)
Edward Thomas's War Diary	54	(1)
Fleance	55	(1)
Company	56	(2)
Man Lying on a Wall	58	(1)
from The Echo Gate (1975-79)
Obsequies	59	(1)
Wreaths	60	(2)
Second Sight	62	(1)
Ash Keys	63	(1)
Spring Tide	64	(2)
Frozen Rain	66	(1)
Thaw	66	(3)
from Mayo Monologues
Brothers	67	(1)
Self-heal	68	(1)
Bog Cotton	69	(1)
The War Poets	70	(1)
Peace	71	(3)
Sulpicia	74	(1)
Grace Darling	75	(1)
On Mweelrea	76	(1)
The Linen Industry	77	(1)
Self-portrait	78	(1)
from New Poems (1979-84)
Patchwork	79	(1)
Maggie Moore's	80	(1)
Love Poet	81	(1)
Hallowe'en	81	(1)
On Slieve Gullion	82	(1)
Smoke in the Branches	83	(1)
Markings	84	(1)
The White Butterfly	85	(1)
from Gorse Fires (1984-90)
Sea Shanty	86	(1)
Between Hovers	87	(1)
Detour	88	(1)
Gorse Fires	89	(1)
Remembering Carrigskeewaun	90	(1)
Homecoming	91	(1)
An Amish Rug	92	(1)
Couchette	93	(1)
Laertes	94	(1)
Anticleia	95	(1)
Terezin	96	(1)
Ghetto	97	(3)
Argos	100	(1)
The Butchers	101	(1)
The Ice-cream Man	102	(1)
Ponies	103	(1)
from The Ghost Orchid (1990-94)
From	104	(1)
Autumn Lady's Tresses	105	(1)
Watercolour	106	(1)
Gretta Bowen's Emendations	106	(1)
According to Pythagoras	107	(1)
Spiderwoman	108	(1)
A Flowering	109	(1)
Mr 10 1/2	110	(1)
Massive Lovers	110	(1)
A Grain of Rice	111	(1)
Chinese Objects	112	(1)
The Scissors Ceremony	113	(1)
Snow-hole	114	(1)
The Eel-trap	114	(1)
Phoenix	115	(1)
The Camp-fires	116	(1)
The Helmet	117	(1)
Poppies	117	(1)
Ceasefire	118	(1)
Phemios & Medon	119	(1)
The Fishing Party	120	(1)
Birdsong	121	(1)
Headstone	122	(1)
The White Garden	123	(1)
The Ghost Orchid	123	(1)
Chinese Occasions	124	(1)
River & Fountain	125	(3)
Snow Bunting	128	(1)
The Oar	129	(1)
Out There	130	(2)
Acknowledgements	132