Reviews
The Sublime Sneaks In
As before, he looks to other civilisations to achieve a wider perspective. Groups of poems are devoted to China and India respectively.
But something else is asserted as well, over and above the elegance of thought, range of reference and lyric beauty of which Mahon is always capable.My favourite poems here . . . have as their starting point a memorable moment out of which comes a vision that is at one and the same time artistic, philosopical, and historical.At the beginning of the 21st century, Derek Mahon is as indispensable a political poet as he was half a century ago, when a 'strange child with a taste for verse' embraced Irish identity in the face of much contradiction.
Philip McDonagh, The Irish Times, 10 May 2010
Paul Batchelor celebrates the triumphant late flowering of Derek Mahon's work 'One of the challenges Mahon sets himself is to find a place in his classical, sculpted poetry for the debris of contemporary life. . . He tries to appreciate the destructive forces of nature, but 'the ancient rage / for order, the old curse, is too ingrained'.
When he manages to hold these contending impulses within a single poem the results can be astonishing. . . The crystalline clarity and the sophisticated sound-patterning are typical of Mahon's best work. . . An Autumn Wind confirms the triumphant late flowering that began with Harbour Lights and continued in Life on Earth. This body of work forms one of the most significant developments in poetry this century.
The Guardian, 8 May 2010
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