Michael Allen: Close Readings: Essays on Irish Poetry

Fran Brearton (Editor)

Research output: Book/ReportBook

Abstract

The late Michael Allen was a member of the famous Belfast Group, and one of the most authoritative critical voices on poetry from Northern Ireland, intimately part of the North’s poetic movement since the early 1960s. He taught at Queen’s University, where he was a colleague of Seamus Heaney and tutor to poets such as Paul Muldoon and Medbh McGuckian. Seamus Heaney called him ‘the reader over my shoulder’. Close Readings brings together interlinked critical writings which have crucially influenced approaches to Irish poetry during the last forty years. The book ends with an extended essay, hitherto unpublished: ‘Doubles, Twins and the Feminine: Development in the Poetry of Michael Longley’.

Close Readings contains a Foreword by Fran Brearton, which relates Michael Allen’s essays to continuing critical and cultural debates. Edna Longley’s Afterword offers a personal view of Allen’s involvement with poetry in Belfast.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationSallins, Co. Kildare
PublisherIrish Academic Press
Number of pages316
ISBN (Print)9780716533054, 9780716533047
Publication statusPublished - 24 Aug 2015

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Michael Allen: Close Readings: Essays on Irish Poetry'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this