John McAuliffe’s Selected Poems begins with poems of the senses, of place, of childhood memories from Kerry, and of calendar and life events. These early poems are often personal, a note maintained among later, broader perspectives. One constant throughout the Selected is that McAuliffe views his subjects with one eye toward the ordinary and the other toward what is distinctive and often surprising in it. In this launch event, McAullife will read from Selected Poems.
Praise for Selected Poems:
“McAuliffe’s gift is to be mindful of elsewheres. He swerves to effect: his shrewd sideways and backwards glances count, pouring light on a subject from several directions simultaneously. Any given moment is likely to be underpinned by what went on before or what is to come. He knows the power of parallel universes.” – Kate Kellaway, The Observer
“John McAuliffe’s Selected Poems are a map of the places where the imagination meets observation, readers invited to travel further into questions of love and attachment than they ever would alone. There is dream too, and abstraction, the poems changing over time into a broad vision of the world as the poet has found it. That world is made for all of us of disappointments, challenges, and pleasures, which McAuliffe draws as the weather and the senses, the poems telling us quietly of thoughts and feelings that we more often keep in the background. Clear voiced and lyrical, McAuliffe’s poems have weight without heaviness, and shade without darkness, the Selected Poems a collection that will stay with you long after you read it.” – Nicholas Allen
John McAuliffe grew up in Listowel, County Kerry. He studied English and Law at NUI Galway, and taught at a number of universities in Ireland, the UK, and the US, including Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and Villanova, where he held the Heimbold Chair in Irish Studies. He now lives in Manchester, where he is Professor of Poetry at the University of Manchester and Associate Publisher at the independent poetry press Carcanet.
