Paul Durcan (Author) Paul Durcan was born in Dublin in 1944. His first book, Endsville (1967), has been followed by more than twenty others, including The Berlin Wall Cafe (a Poetry Book Society Choice in 1985), Daddy, Daddy (winner of the Whitbread Award for Poetry in 1990), Crazy About Women (1991), A Snail in My Prime- New and Selected Poems (1993), Give Me Your Hand (1994), Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (1999), The Art of Life (2004), The Laughter of Mothers (2007), Life is a Dream- 40 Years Reading Poems 1967-2007 (2009), Praise in Which I Live and Move and Have My Being (2012), and The Days of Surprise (2015). In 2001 Paul Durcan received a Cholmondeley Award. He was Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2004 to 2007. He was conferred with a DLitt by Trinity College Dublin in 2009 and by University College Dublin in 2011. In 2014 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Irish Book Award. He is a member of Aosdana. Niall MacMonagle (External Editor) Niall MacMonagle is Ireland's most trusted commentator on poetry. He conceived and edited the bestselling Lifelinesseries in which public figures wrote about their favourite poems. For many years an English teacher at Wesley College, he lives in Dublin with his family. Colm Toibin (Introducer) Colm Toibin was born in Ireland in 1955. He is the author of two novels, The South, which won The Irish Times/Aer Lingus Prize, and The Heather Blazing, which won the Encore Prize for the best second novel published in Britain in 1992, as well as two travel books, Homage to Barcelona and The Sign of the Cross- Travels in Catholic Europe. He lives in Dublin.
His is a once-in-a-generation talent. He has written immortal poems. I revere him. -- Michael Longley To have heard him read adds another pleasure to the reading of his work – but the voice speaks clearly on the page in poems of harrowing intimacy, politics and love -- Carol Ann Duffy Durcan is a God. He can break your heart in supermarket or petrol station. He is unafraid, masterful and exactly what this world needs more of: wild abandon, wild love and sheer mad genius -- Alice Sebold The world is all the richer for this man's verse * Irish Independent * Profoundly funny and profoundly moving... a wonderful collection from a national treasure * Connaught Telegraph * The work of a singular Irish poet is celebrated in this welcome compendium of classic Durcan poems * RTE *