rish poet Theo Dorgan's first two collections, The Ordinary House of Love and Rosa Mundi, went out of print quickly; they were never republished despite widespread and ongoing demand. This book gathers in the poems from those early books, and brings them to a new and wider audience. Theo Dorgan is a poet, prose writer, editor, scriptwriter, translator and sailor. His prose account of a transatlantic voyage under sail Sailing for Home (Penguin Ireland) was praised by Doris Lessing as "a book for everyone." He is the editor and compiler of A Book of Uncommon Prayer (Penguin). He is the editor of Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh, and co-editor of Leabhar Mr na hireann / The Great Book of Ireland, An Leabhar Mr / The Great Book of Gaelic, the anthology Watching the River Flow and the acclaimed collection of historical essays Revising the Rising. His translations of the Slovenian poet Barbara Korun (in collaboration with the poet and Ana Jelnikar), were published as Songs of Earth and Light. He translates from the Irish and from the French and his own work has appeared in Italian (as La Casa ai Margini del Mundo) and in Spanish as La Hija de Safo. He is a member of Aosdna, Ireland's academy of the arts. "I liken Theo Dorgan to a latter-day Aimhirgn, conjuring up the realities of existence out of the mists of the unconscious" -Nuala N Dhomhnaill "The blend of street-warrior and muse poet is extraordinarily appealing. His is an Irish urban voice which can reach far into Russia as well as into the enchanted garden of Sufi love" -John Montague

Theo Dorgan's gripping account of a transatlantic voyage on the schooner Spirit of Oysterhaven-from the Caribbean to the coast of his native Cork-is both travelogue and meditation, interior journey and outward voyage of exploration. Dorgan's meticulously exact account of the labour and skills involved could well act as a handbook for anyone prompted to repeat the adventure. His feel for the history of the sea and sailing, drawn from wide reading, is tested against the practical realities of what is involved in such an ambitious undertaking. The qualities of endurance and willingness he must find in himself, the shared experiences that make four individuals into a crew, all these come as a succession of revelations. He brings a poet's eye to the immensities of the ocean, its lore, its mysteries and its secrets. As so many before him, he will learn that what you find on the journey, not the destination, is what matters. "A book for everyone"-Doris Lessing "This book exerts a form of curious hypnosis which stealthily insinuates its rhythms into your mind. It keeps you alert while somehow lulling you into a drift of easy reading. This enticing travelogue's curious spell is slow and incremental, yet all the more potent for being stealthy." -THE SCOTSMAN

Irish poet Theo Dorgan's first two collections, The Ordinary House of Love and Rosa Mundi, went out of print quickly; they were never republished despite widespread and ongoing demand. This book gathers in the poems from those early books, and brings them to a new and wider audience. Theo Dorgan is a poet, prose writer, editor, scriptwriter, translator and sailor. His prose account of a transatlantic voyage under sail Sailing for Home (Penguin Ireland) was praised by Doris Lessing as "a book for everyone." He is the editor and compiler of A Book of Uncommon Prayer (Penguin). He is the editor of Irish Poetry Since Kavanagh, and co-editor of Leabhar Mr na hireann / The Great Book of Ireland, An Leabhar Mr / The Great Book of Gaelic, the anthology Watching the River Flow and the acclaimed collection of historical essays Revising the Rising. His translations of the Slovenian poet Barbara Korun (in collaboration with the poet and Ana Jelnikar), were published as Songs of Earth and Light. He translates from the Irish and from the French and his own work has appeared in Italian (as La Casa ai Margini del Mundo) and in Spanish as La Hija de Safo. He is a member of Aosdna, Ireland's academy of the arts. "I liken Theo Dorgan to a latter-day Aimhirgn, conjuring up the realities of existence out of the mists of the unconscious" -Nuala N Dhomhnaill "The blend of street-warrior and muse poet is extraordinarily appealing. His is an Irish urban voice which can reach far into Russia as well as into the enchanted garden of Sufi love" -John Montague

Groundswell: New and Selected Poems draws on all of the previous collections of one of Irish poetry's most distinctive and compelling voices. The selection is introduced by Theo Dorgan. Patrick Deeley's imaginative strength springs from his childhood in the west of Ireland, a life close to and involved with nature. But this is no simplistic nature poetry, the poems are rich - as is the soil - with contradictions, growth and failure, life and death, beauty and horror. If Deeley stoops to decipher the scripture of the wood he is yet aware that even the human is fragile and will pass back into that soil. The forms of the poems echo this watchful care, their stanzas shaped, their language poised and cautious. This volume of new and selected poems is a rich and a rigorous achievement. -John F. Deane Though a number of Irish poets have written about the great changes in Ireland during the last ten to fifteen years, none have done it as beautifully, as potently as Deeley.

Theo Dorgan was born in Cork in 1953 and is one of Ireland's best known poets. Theo Dorgan's Greek is a vivid, sensual, technically brilliant new collection which transports the reader through time and space, history and myth, love and death. The Greek Gods and Goddesses walk again, as real as we are, in the islands of 21st century Greece in a poetry which is singingly alive to the pleasures of being here now. This is the language of 'undying'' Writing from "the childhood of the world" in Greece, Dorgan finds his identity as an Islander, as a lover and as a poet made new again, with increased authority and a deep understanding of the power and alchemy of myth; sharing with us his relish of "the great slant freedom of our craft." He demonstrates also a real gift for the short lyric poem in the middle section, 'Islands', each poem here being utterly of its brief moment as "the stars come out on the life that I call mine." Carol Ann Duffy

The National Museum of Ireland / Ard-Mhusaem na hEireann is a repository of memory - but also a living place that enriches and challenges the present, that preserves for the future a witness to who we have been. We invited more than forty poets, writing in both English and Irish, to visit any of the Museum's four collections - Archaeology in Kildare Street, Natural History in Merrion Street, Decorative Arts & History in Collins' Barracks, Dublin, and Country Life in Turlough Park, Co. Mayo - and to write a poem prompted by this visit. The resulting poems in this anthology are inspired by, in conversation with, the Museum itself and those artefacts and objects from its collections that have engaged the imagination of the poets as they have engaged the imaginations of countless visitors through the years."

Detailing the lives of Syrian women living in Paris, these poems, capturing the unheard voices of women whose lives are suppressed in unimaginable ways, allow us to explore moments never mentioned in the news reports. Potent and never failing to capture the essence of the feminine experience with a remarkable amount of insight.

Maram al-Masri here gives voice and presence to women, and some young boys, who are in one way or another mysterious to us - not just because they are 'other' but because they mainly live in a cultural community whose codes and conventions are opaque to Europeans. Mostly but not exclusively Muslim, many of the characters whose real or imagined lives she discloses endure in quiet desperation. Maram al-Masri's gift is to evoke these disparate lives with clarity, brevity and compassion. BAREFOOT SOULS is a chronicle of lives untold; it is also a negotiation between the known and the unknown, a generous service in poetry to our often surprising common humanity.

'Songs of Freedom' is the name of the 1907 songbook edited by the Irish revolutionary socialist James Connolly. This volume contains all of his original songs, reproduced exactly as they originally appeared, providing a fascinating glimpse of the workers' struggle in the early 1900s. To complete the picture, the book includes the 'James Connolly Songbook of 1972', which contains the most complete selection of Connolly's lyrics and historical background essential to understanding the context in which the songs were written.