The poet and publisher, John F. Deane, held court at the Teachers' Club in Dublin's Parnell Square this week, reading from his latest collection of poetry, Manhandling the Deity. The book was launched, by Father Enda McDonagh, of St Patrick's College, Maynooth.
The poet's daughter, Mary Deane (18), who has just started law at TCD, and his two nieces, Elizabeth Flynn and Claire O'Leary, were among those who came to congratulate the man from Achill.
Reading from poems such as 'Acolyte' and 'Knock', he finished with upbeat lines from 'Canticle', which "is about sometimes when you imagine you can hear the music of the spheres", he said, reading: "There is a vast sky wholly dedicated/ to the stars and you know, with certainty,/ that all the dead are out, up there, in one holiday flotilla, and that they celebrate/ the fact of a red gate and a yellow moon/ that tunes their instruments with you to the symphony."
Deane founded Poetry Ireland in 1979. He was awarded the prestigious Marten Toonder Award for Literature in 2001 and, last year, his poems in Italian, translated by Roberto Cogo, won the Premio Internazionale di Poesia Città di Marineo for the best foreign poetry of the year.
Many poets and writers gathered to hear Deane read from his long-awaited book, which is published by Carcanet Press. Among those invited were Joe Woods, poet and director of Poetry Ireland, poets Celia de Fréine, Eva Bourke, Chris Agee and Enda Wyley and writers Jack Harte, founder of the Irish Writers' Union and Philip Casey, of Co Wexford.