Introduction by Seamus Heaney
Dennis O'Driscoll's long devotion to the stripped-down idiom of Eastern
European poets such as Miroslav Holub and Wislawa Szymborska and an
American like Marianne Moore encouraged a style that opted for the plain
before the elevated, the colloquial before the eloquent. Which is not to
say that his work lacked seriousness: in its total alertness to the
present moment, the cultural, social and economic life of contemporary
Ireland, it was a unique phenomenon. If it was satirical - as it often
is in Dear Life - it was not contemptuous. It registered the great
spiritual changes that occurred during his lifetime, as the country
moved from being a rural, religious, mainly agricultural place to an
urban, suburban, secular destination for multinationals.--Seamus Heaney,
from the Introduction
Dennis O'Driscoll has produced an extraordinary body of work. . . . Some
of his poems have already achieved the status of classics.--Poetry
Ireland Review
[One] of the most interesting poets now writing in English.
O'Driscoll's poetry has the rare virtue of making us feel that most
other poets are forcing things a little, striving for effect. He writes
directly, naturally, about the emotions that are closest to us and, for
that very reason, go unobserved: how we actually feel about work and
possessions and aging.--Slate
Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll's new poems engage with contemporary
issues--the internet era, the compensation culture, global warming--as
well as the timeless topics of working and aging, loving and dying, God
and Mammon. His poems give voice to twenty-first century Western
attitudes towards religion, while the ambitious title-sequence attempts
a rigorous exploration of the purpose of human life.
From Valentine:
Back in hospital on this fateful date, but to no complications for
once, I am discharged in good time to lighta candle on the kitchen
table, decantyour Valentine's glass of sparkling wine, sear the steak,
sauté the onions, bakepotatoes till their paunchy waistcoats loosen,
launch the gravy boat on its salt voyage, let mushrooms set sail on
melting butter . . .
Dennis O'Driscoll (1954-2012) died suddenly on Christmas Eve, 2012.
He was the author of nine collections of poetry as well as a book of
interviews with Seamus Heaney, Stepping Stones. Poetry Review
famously--and deservedly--called O'Driscoll one of the best-read men in
the Western world.
