POETRY BOOK SOCIETY SPECIAL COMMENDATION Dennis O'Driscoll is among the
finest and most popular poets of his generation. New and Selected
Poems shows him to be a poet of humanity and wit whose observant,
rhythmically supple poetry is attuned to the tragedies and comedies of
contemporary life. One of the book's highlights is "The Bottom Line," a
multi-voiced and multifaceted portrait of business managers and
bureaucrats. Closing with a generous selection of previously unpublished
work, New and Selected Poems - which follows Dennis O'Driscoll's
acclaimed Exemplary Damages, chosen as a Book of the Year by Seamus
Heaney in 2002 - makes for a compelling collection, wide in its appeal
and yet imbued with a distinctive and often startling world-view. Born
in Thurles, County Tipperary in 1954, Dennis O'Driscoll has published
six collections of poetry and a selection of his essays and reviews,
Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams (Gallery Press). He received a
Lannan Literary Award in 1999, the E.M. Forster Award from the American
Academy of Arts and Letters in 2005 and the O'Shaughnessy Award for
Poetry in 2006. A civil servant since the age of 16, he works for Irish
Customs in Dublin.