Book description
DRAWN FROM FOUR CENTURIES of writing in English by the famous and
the forgotten, Ireland's Other Poetry: Anonymous to Zozimus is a major
new anthology of entertaining and unusual poems, rhymes and songs. It
revisits a forgotten Irish poetic landscape, bringing the reader on an
exhilarating alphabetical tour through a country freighted with
unexpected curiosities, from Dunluce to Belfast, Dublin, Cork and the
Skelligs. Many anonymous or neglected poets, humorists and lyricists
will be encountered, as will more celebrated writers, often in
skittish mood. They range from Jonathan Swift to Shane MacGowan, by
way of Flann O'Brien, Goldsmith, George Bernard Shaw and Christy Moore
- as well as the occasional exotic visitor like Betjeman or Chesterton
- to Michael Hartnett and Brendan Behan, Percy French and Oliver St
John Gogarty, Ewart Milne and Derek Mahon, Tommy Makem and James
Clarence Mangan: a gathering of the familiar and unfamiliar, on the
wing. In Ireland's Other Poetry are memorable verses on food and
philosophy, on courtship and cuckoldry, on Guinness and ghosts, on
war, on murder, on lighting a match. Masterpieces of wordplay and
parody rub shoulders with sporting songs, advertising jingles and
lyrics from theatre. Here be nonsense verse, satire and stage Irish
buffoonery, religious propaganda, doggerel, musichall bawdry, and good
honest abuse - some of it politically incorrect, all of it
captivating. With over 300 lively illustrations by Hector McDonnell,
this wonderful tour d'horizon will become an essential reference work
and companion for those interested in Irish writing, culture, or
social life down the years, or for anyone who seeks the words of a
favourite comic verse. JOHN WYSE JACKSON, for years a director of John
Sandoe's Bookshop in London's Chelsea, now lives in County Wexford
with his family. His books include John Stanislaus Joyce: The Life of
James Joyce's Father (with Peter Costello), Flann O'Brien at War and
We All Want To Change the World: A Life of John Lennon.
