The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry 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 Ní Ghearbhuigh. Each section is introduced with an essay by Wheatley which offers some background, context, and general illumination about the poet. As Wheatley writes in his preface, "Irish poetry is a peregrine entit...

In this, his first collection of poems in fifteen years, Aidan Mathews brings together the sacred and the profane, playful and profound, the iconic and the everyday - illuminating the variousness and commonality of human experience. These poems wear their erudition lightly: dazzling us with their fresh observations, the strangely intimate details ('mice among the breadcrumbs of the Last Supper') and a fluid, metaphysical wit that can link a saint's matyrdom to a Sunday roast.Mercur...