“This year many poets were commissioned to respond to the Rising, shock led to poems that were respectable and sympathetic, but i was most struck by Tom French‘s angry riff on the Easter 1916 helpline in The Way to Work (Gallery).
It was, more generally, a year of stocktaking for poetry and perhaps the best, most revelatory books were anthologies and selections. Anyone who appreciates the entangling beauty of the best contemporary lyric poetry, in or out of Ireland, will enjoy picking up the new selections from Martina Evans (The Windows of Graceland: New and Selected Poems, Carcanet),
Vona Groarke (Selected Poems, Gallery), Derek Mahon (New Selected Poems, Gallery/Faber) and Paul Muldoon (New Selected Poems, Faber).”
— The Irish Times, December 2016
