Carcanet Press - Pastorals

Description
Author
Awards
Reviews

Peter McDonald invokes and explores the pastoral imagination, in love-poems and poems about grief, poems concerning remote history and the more recent past, and poems which find new shapes for our difficult, sometimes contradictory, relations to place and environment. Some longer pieces bring together these concerns: 'The Victory Weekend' sets the London VE-Day anniversary celebrations in 1995 against an adolescence in Belfast, while 'Eclogue' (an updating of Virgil) brings to post-Peace Process Belfast a debate between the exile and the stay-at-home.

McDonald's lyric variety and control (from sharp rhyming couplets to seventeenth-century heroic stanzas, from sonnets and unrhymed forms to Spenserian stanzas) make for memorable, sometimes haunted and unsettling, poetry.

Pastorals is Peter McDonald's first book for eight years, and confirms him as being among Ireland's most accomplished lyric poets.

Peter McDonald was born in Belfast in 1962. His first book of poetry, Biting the Wax, was published in 1989, and since then seven volumes of his verse have appeared, including his Collected Poems (2012). He has written four books of literary criticism, including Mistaken Identities: Poetry and Northern Ireland ... read more

Awards won by Peter McDonald Short-listed, 2017 London Hellenic Prize (The Homeric Hymns)

'Peter McDonald's unsettling imagination occupies a middle distance between domesticity and wilderness - what he calls 'the melancholy distance'. His fine elegies and love poems have in common a cool intonation and an argumentative persistence: the overlap is a telling one. McDonald's disenchanted vision makes the moments of intimacy and tenderness, when they come, all the more affecting. In addition, his profound literary intelligence thrives on metrical and stanzaic challenge, and ranges with relish from gnomic brevity to sustained meditation, narrative and memoir. These poems, which with their gently syncopated lines may seem understated, register the uneasiness and the excitement of 'the buzzing world': they are, in the poet's own words, 'back roads to everywhere'.
Michael Longley Praise for Peter McDonald 'Wise, acerbic, tuneful yet conversational... Ranging from oblique lyrics to blank verse so subtle it strikes the ear first as speech... a rich and various life shapes these richly various poems.'
Rosanna Warren, Ploughshares 'This is visual, visionary poetry, burning with the light of its own meaning, determined to see what is really there.'
Andrew McCulloch, Times Literary Supplement 'Some personalities have their day in politics and in poetry; but if we listen as attentively as these poems ask us to, McDonald's words should outlast any amplified roars.'
Fran Brearton, The Guardian 'McDonald is often impressively adept at using varied metres for cadence, musicality, tension. He resists the over-dramatic, but is a poet of fierce feeling - moved and often moving.'
TLS 'Hugely impressive... not just rich but endlessly varied and subtle... marvellous.'
David Wheatley, Irish Times 'Peter McDonald's unsettling imagination occupies a middle distance between domesticity and wilderness... [his] disenchanted vision makes the moments of intimacy and tenderness, when they come, all the more affecting.'
Michael Longley, CBE 'McDonald's work 'is entirely in keeping with Milton's enjoinder that poetry be "simple, sensuous and passionate". His musicality is not just rich but endlessly varied and subtle. [...] It embodies the values of accuracy, conscience, and restraint but with no skimping of intensity or ferocity.'
David Wheatley, Irish Times

Quote of the Day It is impossible to imagine literary life in Britain without Carcanet. William Boyd Home Events Authors Titles Paperback Hardback Limited Edition Journal CD eBook Audiobook Exact Editions Imprints Anvil Press Poetry Aspects of Portugal Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Carcanet Poetry Fyfield Books Little Island Press Lives and Letters Northern House OxfordPoets PN Review Information About Us PN Review Turns 50 Years Old! Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! Academic Enquiries Authors for Events Catalogue Contact Us Copyright and Permissions Join Our Mailing List Opportunities at Carcanet Press Enquiries PN Review PN Review Creative Writing Prize Returns Policy Shopping Guide Stocklist Submission Guidelines Trade Information Resources Audio Gallery Reading Group Guides Video
Book Search Search > advanced search Subscribe to our mailing list
Order by 16th December to receive books in time for Christmas. Please bear in mind that all orders may be subject to postal delays that are beyond our control.
Pastorals Peter McDonald Categories: 21st Century, Irish Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (96 pages) (Pub. Sep 2004) 9781857547528 Out of Stock Description Author Awards Reviews Peter McDonald invokes and explores the pastoral imagination, in love-poems and poems about grief, poems concerning remote history and the more recent past, and poems which find new shapes for our difficult, sometimes contradictory, relations to place and environment. Some longer pieces bring together these concerns: 'The Victory Weekend' sets the London VE-Day anniversary celebrations in 1995 against an adolescence in Belfast, while 'Eclogue' (an updating of Virgil) brings to post-Peace Process Belfast a debate between the exile and the stay-at-home. McDonald's lyric variety and control (from sharp rhyming couplets to seventeenth-century heroic stanzas, from sonnets and unrhymed forms to Spenserian stanzas) make for memorable, sometimes haunted and unsettling, poetry. Pastorals is Peter McDonald's first book for eight years, and confirms him as being among Ireland's most accomplished lyric poets. Peter McDonald was born in Belfast in 1962. His first book of poetry, Biting the Wax, was published in 1989, and since then seven volumes of his verse have appeared, including his Collected Poems (2012). He has written four books of literary criticism, including Mistaken Identities: Poetry and Northern Ireland ... read more Awards won by Peter McDonald Short-listed, 2017 London Hellenic Prize (The Homeric Hymns) 'Peter McDonald's unsettling imagination occupies a middle distance between domesticity and wilderness - what he calls 'the melancholy distance'. His fine elegies and love poems have in common a cool intonation and an argumentative persistence: the overlap is a telling one. McDonald's disenchanted vision makes the moments of intimacy and tenderness, when they come, all the more affecting. In addition, his profound literary intelligence thrives on metrical and stanzaic challenge, and ranges with relish from gnomic brevity to sustained meditation, narrative and memoir. These poems, which with their gently syncopated lines may seem understated, register the uneasiness and the excitement of 'the buzzing world': they are, in the poet's own words, 'back roads to everywhere'. Michael Longley Praise for Peter McDonald 'Wise, acerbic, tuneful yet conversational... Ranging from oblique lyrics to blank verse so subtle it strikes the ear first as speech... a rich and various life shapes these richly various poems.' Rosanna Warren, Ploughshares 'This is visual, visionary poetry, burning with the light of its own meaning, determined to see what is really there.' Andrew McCulloch, Times Literary Supplement 'Some personalities have their day in politics and in poetry; but if we listen as attentively as these poems ask us to, McDonald's words should outlast any amplified roars.' Fran Brearton, The Guardian 'McDonald is often impressively adept at using varied metres for cadence, musicality, tension. He resists the over-dramatic, but is a poet of fierce feeling - moved and often moving.' TLS 'Hugely impressive... not just rich but endlessly varied and subtle... marvellous.' David Wheatley, Irish Times 'Peter McDonald's unsettling imagination occupies a middle distance between domesticity and wilderness... [his] disenchanted vision makes the moments of intimacy and tenderness, when they come, all the more affecting.' Michael Longley, CBE 'McDonald's work 'is entirely in keeping with Milton's enjoinder that poetry be "simple, sensuous and passionate". His musicality is not just rich but endlessly varied and subtle. [...] It embodies the values of accuracy, conscience, and restraint but with no skimping of intensity or ferocity.' David Wheatley, Irish Times	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: John Gallas read more Emotional Support Horse: Claudine Toutoungi read more
We thank the Arts Council England for their support and assistance in this interactive Project.
Privacy Statement Sitemap RSS Feeds Home Events Authors Titles Imprints Information Resources This website ©2000-2024 Carcanet Press Ltd