No Earthly Estate: God and Patrick Kavanagh: An Anthology

by Tom Stack

Contains the text of, and commentary on, the religious poems of Patrick Kavanagh. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1856073408
• ISBN13: 9781856073400
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Columba Press (IE)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Gold in the mire

Patrick Kavanagh is a great poet, rather uneven in the quality of his work, but with some unforgettable poems. He combines modern idiom with words and images from his Irish farm upbringing and uses flexible structures in designing his poems. His 'free verse' has much greater control than the average slop "all out of shape from toe to top" (Yeats, of course) that modern poets find so attractive, but he is not a writer of traditional styles. This is a nice selection, though not all his best work. Take a look at 'Epic' or 'The Hospital' or selections from 'The Great Hunger'. Kavanagh has a striking voice, brilliant, original, alive. His old fashioned power to please, his artistry with rhythms, cadences and rhymes works well with his varied themes. Tom Stack's comments are useful, particularly if one is previously unfamiliar with Mr Kavanagh's work.