Poetry My Arse and other Books of Poetry by Brendan Kennelly - kbpmy.txt [1/1] - readirel.txt [1/1]
Gregory Carr
Poetry My Arse - In this new epic poem, Kennelly plays devil's
advocate, exploring the 'poetryworlds' of and Ace de Horner, who is
slowly going blind. Helped by his uglyjoe dog, Kanooce, and by a
woman, Janey Mary, Ace thinks he is seeing things in himself a little
more clearly, connecting the fragments of his life a little more
convincingly. Not so! As the poem digs into Ace's vanity, visions,
fantasies, failures, dedication and absurdity, the reader becomes party
to his painful efforts to relate to poetry, to his jocular distortions of
language and to his pained perspective on the world.
Poetry My Arse is also a poem about Kennelly's Dublin, a city of
parody and caricature, an attractive, scruffy centre of scandal and
gossip where slagging, piss-taking and ridicule keep boredom and the
terrors of self-knowledge at bay.
Poetry My Arse is an anatomy of mockery, at once satire and elegy,
epic and lyric, narrative and impressionistic.
When anyone snaps 'Poetry My Arse!' they may not be dismissing
poetry, but they are certainly pouring scorn on the intellectual elitism
often associated with poetry, or on the posturing arrogance of some
poets, or on the ways in which poetry is talked about or "taught".
Poetry My Arse is written in that spirit of scorn, trading self-glory for
self-abuse.
(Paperback: IR 9.95 - UK 9.95 - US 15.95apx)
(Hardback: IR25.00 - UK25.00 - US40.00apx)
The Book of Judas
In this book, an epic poem in 12 parts, Kennelly lets Judas, the eternal
traitor and scapegoat, who is not merely lost but irredeemable, speak,
dream and murmur in all his voices - of past and present, history and
myth, good and evil, men, women and children, and money - until we
realise that the dammed outcast, the unspeakable perpetrator of the
apparently unthinkable, in penetrating the icy reaches of his own
world, becomes a sly, many-voiced critic of ours.
(Paperback: IR9.95 - UK9.95 - US 15.95apx)
(Hardback: IR25.00 - UK 25.00 - US 40.00apx)
Breathing Spaces
This book gives a breathing space for a number of early poems
including the poem-sequences Love Cry, Islandman and A Small Light
as well as poems from Shelley in Dublin and a full version of A Girl
consisting of 22 songs, several previously unpublished. Kennelly has
written new introductions for each of these sequences as well as a
provocative new essay to preface the collection.
(Paperback: IR8.95 - UK8.95 - US14.50apx)
(Hardback: IR14.95 - UK14.95 - US23.95apx)
A Time For Voices: Selected Poems 1960-1990
(Paperback: IR8.95 - UK8.95 - US 14.50apx)
(Hardback: IR14.95 - UK14.95 - US23.95apx)
Cromwell: An Epic Poem
(Paperback: IR8.95 - UK8.95 - US14.50apx)
Medea by Euripides: a New Translation
(Paperback: IR5.95 - UK5.95 - US9.50apx)
(Hardback: IR12.95 - UK12.95 - US20.75apx)
The Trojan Women by Euripides: a New Translation
(Paperback: IR6.95 - UK6.95 - US11.00apx)
These books, as well as any Irish-Interest Book, may be ordered from
Read Ireland Bookstore, 342 North Circular Road, Phibsboro, Dublin 7
IRELAND
Tel/Fax: +353-1-8302997
Access/MasterCard and Visa accepted. Postage charged at cost.
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