Invoking Wordsworth, Harvill Press are making bold claims for Paul Durcan's forthcoming collection of poems, due for publication in February.
Arrestingly entitled The Mary Robinson Years and subtitled 100 Poems, it is, says Harvill, "the collection by which his whole career will be judged. It is a book of tremendous ambition, at once his most personal and his most public work to date. It will stand as his Prelude, a meticulously honest record of a writer's inner life, but it is also an audacious attempt to fix the soul of his country at a particular point in time: the years of Mary Robinson's presidency.
"The pain and redemption of his inner odyssey are mirrored in the images of an Ireland awakening from the nightmare of its violent past, becoming freer, more cosmopolitan, less hypocritical, and finding in Mary Robinson the unifying symbol for this new age."
Sounds both important and exciting, a good deal more exciting than the book of poems I was planning about the same period, which I was going to call The John Bruton Years. But then I was never good on titles.
I wrote recently about the up-front and jolly Personal Ads to be found in the London Review of Books, and in the current issue there are more in the same vein, including one from a "footballing intellectual male" seeking "female help to manage his Arsenal" and a very lengthy plea from a thirtysomething Chinese male who, despite his verbosity, neglects to mention whether he wants to meet up with a woman or a man. Well, maybe either or both, and good luck to him.
Other aspects of the LRB have also become jollier. In the Letters page, for instance, normally devoted either to French literary theory or international politics, almost everyone this issue is wondering who coined a couple of well-known sayings.
Was it Ernest Thesiger in 1916 who said of battle "My dear, the noise, and the people," or was it Lord Sefton referring to Dunkirk? John Bayley and Richard Davenport-Hines are among the correspondents arguing the point.
And who was it who declared "Never play cards with a man called Doc; never eat in a diner that offers Mom's Cooking; and never sleep with a woman who has more problems than you"? Neal Ascherson is among those attributing these wise observations to Nelson Algren. I always thought it was Raymond Chandler, but I'm probably mistaken.
Anyway, these tidbits make for amusing reading in an issue that also features a fine review by Frank Kermode of Bruce Arnold's excellent biography of Jack Yeats, published by Yale in a very handsome edition.
Boyzone's Ronan Keating doesn't feature in Poetry Ireland Review, but that doesn't mean he doesn't muse about the muse. In the November issue of Q, that exemplary music magazine, he is asked if he can recite a line of verse, and he replies:
"There's this epitaph that W.B. Yeats had on his gravestone - Cast a cold eye on life and death/Horseman, pass me by." Well, close enough, Ronan. But why does he recall it? "It's something that I learnt when I was young. When you think about it, in his time Yeats was very well respected and well known, but when you die you're replaced by the next poet. It's the story of life really."
That it is, Ronan, that it is. Shure, who remembers Yeats now?
Courtesy of the latest Poetry Ireland newsletter, I learn that various Irish bookshops are now on the Internet. I could, I suppose, have discovered this information for myself, if only I bothered to set aside the inordinate amount of time it takes me to locate anything on the Internet.
Anyway, the newsletter has special praise for the websites of both Fred Hanna and Kenny's of Galway. The former "have a beautifully designed site: easy to navigate, nice to look at and, that rarest of things on the Net, considerate - with text-only versions of some of its pages for speedier (and cheaper!) downloading times. A lot of thought went into this site and it shows." High praise, indeed, and you can judge for yourself at http://www.hannas.ie.
Kenny's is described as "another lovely, clearly laid-out and accessible site with both new and secondhand sections." You'll find this at http://www.kennys.ie.
Patrick Healy is in Waterstone's next Tuesday at 6pm to read from his novel, Up in the Air and Down, and former scourge of the British Establishment Tariq Ali is at the same venue at the same time the following evening to read from his latest novel, The Book of Saladin. Go along and ask him about the good old days.