Derek Mahon: A True Note – an anniversary appreciation by John Banville
The Belfast-born poet, who died five years ago, left us a precious legacy of transcendent beauty, vigour, wit and profundity
Poetry
Ignored but persistent, Bosco Helly’s poetry takes pointlessness to a new level
Galway wordsmith undeterred by his own failure to develop a readership
Grief, memory and women: Enda Wyley on what inspired her new poetry collection
Maybe these new poems consider memory to be a type of picture taking or making, the poet’s role to remember
Where Love and Imagination Colour the Dark: Essays on Thomas Kinsella – A powerful set of essays
Thomas Kinsella’s work is illuminated by ambience of inner-city Dublin, providing a Swiftian permanence
What does it mean to be a fallen woman?
In my new poetry collection I reclaim tragic heroines, or at least imagine a different ending to their stories
Colm Tóibín on The Poems of Seamus Heaney: ‘A process of finding echoes and associations’
This book contains Heaney’s unpublished poems plus all those from his single books of poetry published
Seamus Heaney’s Ribbons: A beautiful poem about his sisters, published for the first time
The reader is transported by Heaney’s illuminating memory: we’re in a school, a photographer is visiting and the girls are having their picture taken
Humans are apes that make beautiful things on purpose, but that’s not the whole truth
We contain multitudes. We don’t have to be afraid of ambiguity and difficulty
Michael D Higgins’s poetry album Against All Certainty: To hell with policy wonks for president, get a few bards
The President takes us back to an era of scarcity, warmth and unspoken love
‘An honesty like no other’: Padraic Fiacc’s legacy recognised in his Belfast birthplace
The subversive voice of the poet, one of the foremost chroniclers of the Troubles, still echoes
Harbour to odyssey: New poetry from Bebe Ashley, Paul Farley, Moya Cannon and Afric McGlinchey
Reviews of Harbour Doubts; When It Rained for a Million Years; Bunting’s Honey; and à la belle étoile
Spinal cord recovery: Assistive technology was a liberator for me
Tadhg Paul says writing helped him embrace to life again and regain mobility after his spinal cord injury
Dublin poet Stephen James Smith: ‘I’m just holding a mirror up to the city, trying to tell the truth’
The poet on the inspiration in his life, his dyslexia, Pat Ingoldsby, and how one poem he wrote changed his life
Collected Poems by Gerard Fanning: Elliptical, at times cryptic works built on mood and atmosphere
Early on, one feels the need to ask for a primer for some of Fanning’s enigmas but later he seems to relax into a more open, approachable clarity
New poetry: Frank McGuinness, Erica McAlpine, James Harpur and Dane Holt
Reviews of The River Crana; Small Pointed Things; The Magic Theatre; and Father’s Father’s Father
Paul Durcan: ‘Poetry was a gift that he loved to give others’
Kathleen MacMahon, Conor O’Callaghan, Bernard MacLaverty, Enda Wyley, William Wall, Aifric McGlinchey and Martin Doyle pay tribute
Bodily takeover: New poetry from Gwyneth Lewis, Jennifer Horgan, Dedalus Introductions and Peter McDonald
Reviews of First Rain in Paradise; Beginnings Over and Over; Care; and One Little Room
Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt: a portrait of the sensualist as a young man
The poet’s first novel documents the totalising force of youthful infatuation with fidelity and tenderness
Crosswords & Puzzles
Crosswords & puzzles to keep you challenged and entertained
Common Ground
How does a post-Brexit world shape the identity and relationship of these islands
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Weddings, Births, Deaths and other family notices