Now incorporating The Sudbury Hill Harrow and Wherever End Times

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Michael Longley

As English as Irish can be (Guardian)

" 'You take your poems seriously,' he instructs, 'but you don't take yourself seriously. What the muse hates more than anything is self-importance. Shakespeare wasn't self-important, was he?'
[...]
The Ice-Cream Man, is a lovely elegy for a murdered shopkeeper: 'I got a letter from his mother thanking me for the poem. I treasure that letter. It's worth all the good reviews put together.' " (Guardian)

Collected Poems (Cape, 2006)

Ossian

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