Since his precise, potent and subtle portraits of Northern Irish life first came to public attention in the 1970s, Tom Paulin has been an unmissable writer on the contemporary poetry scene. This selection on his work draws on nearly four decades of poetry and translation, updating and expanding upon the Selected Poems 1972-1990, and showcasing the microscopic detail and reinvention of the ordinary with which Paulin writes of place, culture and memory. The Ireland of Paulin's childhood is explored both from a personal and a historical perspective to form a complex picture of a country in turmoil and in recovery. But Paulin's concerns are as international as they are local, as reflected in his long-standing appetite for European writers, histories and languages. Dialectic and lyrical, original and exploratory, ambitious and provocative, Tom Paulin is one of the defining voices of his generation: brilliantly varied and utterly compelling, as apparent from this New Selected Poems.
