Description
In his foreword to this book, Derek Mahon notes that P.J. Kavanagh's poems 'elude the obvious categories. He has never been one of a "school"'. A poet of rural England, yet of Irish ancestry, Kavanagh 'has always stood slightly apart'. He championed the poems of Ivor Gurney and shares with Gurney not only a personal landscape (that of Gloucestershire) but a poetic commitment to the actual and specific, to nature writing at its most rootedly precise. His is, in Mahon's words, 'a unique personal record': 'a lifetime's dedication has produced its rich results'.
About the Author
P.J. KAVANAGH was born in England in 1931, and has worked as a lecturer, actor and broadcaster, as well as a writer. His Collected Poems were published in 1992, the year in which he was given the Cholmondeley Award for poetry. His memoir The Perfect Stranger won the Richard Hillary Prize in 1966, and his first novel A Song and Dance was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1968. From 1983 to 1996 P.J. Kavanagh was a columnist on the Spectator, and from 1996 to 2002 on The Times Literary Supplement. In addition to his four novels for adults and two children's novels, he has written a travel autobiography (Finding Connections), a literary companion (Voices in Ireland) and has edited The Oxford Book of Short Poems and The Essential G.K. Chesterton, and, for Carcanet, a new edition of his Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney.
Reviews
'The pleasure of reading these poems is the pleasure of exceptionally good company. Kavanagh has exactly the right kind of curiosity - neither pedantic nor trifling, but casual in the best sense.' --Wynn Wheldon, Spectator
Book Information
ISBN 9781847772527
Author P. J. Kavanagh
Format Paperback
Page Count 167
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
About the Author
P.J. KAVANAGH was born in England in 1931, and has worked as a lecturer, actor and broadcaster, as well as a writer. His Collected Poems were published in 1992, the year in which he was given the Cholmondeley Award for poetry. His memoir The Perfect Stranger won the Richard Hillary Prize in 1966, and his first novel A Song and Dance was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1968. From 1983 to 1996 P.J. Kavanagh was a columnist on the Spectator, and from 1996 to 2002 on The Times Literary Supplement. In addition to his four novels for adults and two children's novels, he has written a travel autobiography (Finding Connections), a literary companion (Voices in Ireland) and has edited The Oxford Book of Short Poems and The Essential G.K. Chesterton, and, for Carcanet, a new edition of his Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney.
Reviews
'The pleasure of reading these poems is the pleasure of exceptionally good company. Kavanagh has exactly the right kind of curiosity - neither pedantic nor trifling, but casual in the best sense.' --Wynn Wheldon, Spectator
Book Information
ISBN 9781847772527
Author P. J. Kavanagh
Format Paperback
Page Count 167
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
