Book picks similar to
Irish Poems by Matthew McGuire


poetry
irish
everymans-library-pocket-poets
fiction

Hopkins: Poems


Gerard Manley Hopkins - 1995
    Poems: Hopkins contains a full selection of Hopkins's work, including selected verse, prose, and letters, and an index of first lines.

The Best of Myles


Myles na gCopaleen - 1968
    The great Irish humorist and writer Flann O'Brien, aka Brian O'Nolan,aka Myles na Gopaleen, also wrote a newspaper column called "CruiskeenLawn." The Best of Myles collects the best and funniest, covering suchsubjects as plumbers, the justice system, and improbable inventions.

Stevens: Poems


Wallace Stevens - 1947
    Poems: Stevens contains a selection, chosen by Helen Vendler, of over sixty of Stevens's poems, revealing with renewed force his status as our supreme acrobat of the imagination.

Only Say the Word


Niall Williams - 2005
    From the bestselling author of 'Four Letters Of Love' and 'As It Is In Heaven, 'Only Say The Word' is a story about love, home and family, about reading and writing, and ultimately - about living.

Plath: Poems


Sylvia Plath - 1987
    With their brutally frank self-exposure and emotional immediacy, Plath's poems, from "Lady Lazarus" to "Daddy," have had an enduring influence on contemporary poetry.

Walden & Civil Disobedience


Henry David Thoreau - 1849
    His simple but profound musings—as well as Civil Disobedience, his protest against the government's interference with civil liberty—have inspired many to embrace his philosophy of individualism and love of nature.

Zoli


Colum McCann - 2001
    Zoli Novotna, a young woman raised in the traveling Gypsy tradition, is a poet by accident as much as desire. As 1930s fascism spreads over Czechoslovakia, Zoli and her grandfather flee to join a clan of fellow Romani harpists. Sharpened by the world of books, which is often frowned upon in the Romani tradition, Zoli becomes the poster girl for a brave new world. As she shapes the ancient songs to her times, she finds her gift embraced by the Gypsy people and savored by a young English expatriate, Stephen Swann. But Zoli soon finds that when she falls she cannot fall halfway–neither in love nor in politics. While Zoli’s fame and poetic skills deepen, the ruling Communists begin to use her for their own favor. Cast out from her family, Zoli abandons her past to journey to the West, in a novel that spans the 20th century and travels the breadth of Europe.Colum McCann, acclaimed author of Dancer and This Side of Brightness, has created a sensuous novel about exile, belonging and survival, based loosely on the true story of the Romani poet Papsuza. It spans the twentieth century and travels the breadth of Europe. In the tradition of Steinbeck, Coetzee, and Ondaatje, McCann finds the art inherent in social and political history, while vividly depicting how far one gifted woman must journey to find where she belongs.

Young Skins


Colin Barrett - 2013
    Here, and in the towns beyond, the young live hard and wear the scars. Amongst them, there’s jilted Jimmy, whose best friend Tug is the terror of the town and Jimmy’s sole company in his search for the missing Clancy kid; Bat, a lovesick soul with a face like “a bowl of mashed up spuds” even before Nubbin Tansey’s boot kicked it in; and Arm, a young and desperate criminal whose destiny is shaped when he and his partner, Dympna, fail to carry out a job. In each story, a local voice delineates the grittiness of Irish society; unforgettable characters whose psychological complexities and unspoken yearnings are rendered through silence, humor, and violence.With power and originality akin to Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned and Claire Vaye Watkins’ Battleborn these six short stories and one explosive novella occupy the ghostly, melancholic spaces between boyhood and old age. Told in Barrett’s vibrant, distinctive prose, Young Skins is an accomplished and irreverent debut from a brilliant new writer.

Borstal Boy


Brendan Behan - 1958
    . . I grabbed my suitcase, containing Pot. Chlor., Sulph Ac, gelignite, detonators, electrical and ignition, and the rest of my Sinn Fein conjurer's outfit, and carried it to the window . . ." The men were, of course, the police, and seventeen-year-old Behan. He spent three years as a prisoner in England, primarily in Borstal (reform school), and was then expelled to his homeland, a changed but hardly defeated rebel. Once banned in the Irish Republic, Borstal Boy is both a riveting self-portrait and a clear look into the problems, passions, and heartbreak of Ireland.

Seek the Fair Land


Walter Macken - 1959
     Set amidst the Cromwellian Invasions, "Seek the Fair Wind" begins in 1641. Dominick McMahon, a merchant by trade, has little appetite for fighting, yet is forced to defend his town against Cromwell's army. From dark city streets to wild mountains, from vicious slaughter to triumphant faith, from selfish obedience to heroic opposition - this novel paints a vivid portrait of the struggles of the Irish people against the English. Along with "The Silent People" and "The Scorching Wind," " Seek the Fair Land" is a fascinating examination of the history and events that fueled the fight for freedom in Ireland.

The Gangs of New York


Herbert Asbury - 1927
    It is a tour through a now unrecognizable city of abysmal poverty and habitual violence cobbled, as Luc Sante has written, "from legend, memory, police records, the self-aggrandizements of aging crooks, popular journalism, and solid historical research." Asbury presents the definitive work on this subject, an illumination of the gangs of old New York that ultimately gave rise to the modern Mafia and its depiction in films like The Godfather.

Good Behaviour


Molly Keane - 1981
    I have always known...'Behind the gates of Temple Alice the aristocratic Anglo-Irish St Charles family sinks into a state of decaying grace. To Aroon St Charles, large and unlovely daughter of the house, the fierce forces of sex, money, jealousy and love seem locked out by the ritual patterns of good behaviour. But crumbling codes of conduct cannot hope to save the members of the St Charles family from their own unruly and inadmissible desires.

The Field


John Brendan Keane - 1966
    Keane's fierce and tender study of the love a man can have for land and the ruthless lengths he will go to in order to obtain the object of his desire. It is dominated by Bull McCabe, one of the most famous characters in Irish writing today. An Oscar-nominated adaptation of The Field proved highly successful and popular worldwide, and starred Richard Harris, Sean Bean, John Hurt, Brenda Fricker and Tom Berenger.

Poems and Songs


Robert Burns - 1906
    

Love Poems and Sonnets


William Shakespeare - 1608
    The greatest sonnets ever written, by the greatest poet and playwright in the English language