God and Patrick Kavanagh - An Anthology
by Fr. Tom Stack
'Patrick Kavanagh himself said that poetry was a mystical thing, and Tom Stack's reading of the poems amplifies and illuminates that claim. His book is informed by a deep faith and underwritten by long pastoral experience. He has done his scholarly homework but the personal conviction behind the writing alerts us all over again to Kavanagh's poetry as ''a hole in heaven's gable''.'
- Seamus Heaney
As poets go, Patrick Kavanagh (1904-67) enjoys an exceptionally popular and influential place in the hearts of the Irish public. He offers us a uniquely distilled reflection of ourselves as a people and uncovers for us an intriguing spiritual landscape, both rich and recognisable. In this, his poetry is both original and enduring.
It is noteworthy that in Patrick Kavanagh's extant work of published poems, which number 253, no fewer than 138 of these include explicitly religious themes, images or allusions. This means that references to Christian faith, in one way or another, make their appearances in more than half of all his poetic writing. It is for that reason that this collection of poems appears here as an anthology in its own right.
Tom Stack offers a commentary on the spiritual content and significance of the sixty poems here selected. This consists of a general introduction to the anthology, together with particular introductions to the three long poems in the collection, The Great Hunger, Lough Derg and Father Mat.
Author Biography
Tom Stack is a Limerick man. He was educated at Crescent College, UCD, Clonliffe and Harvard University. He is a Catholic priest who, in addition to various pastoral assignments in Dublin, has also worked as a newspaper columnist and broadcaster, and was a member of the Radharc film documentary team. He is now parish priest in Milltown, Dublin.
This product was added to our catalog on Friday 29 January, 2010.
