Peter Fallon is a seasoned Irish poet whose verse sings with a candid and vivid imagery which conjures an emotional response devoid of fringe sentimentality. A Way of the World: A lost light shines/in the haggard/of years. So much begins,/like a pearl, upon a blemish./Some take life hard.//some take the same life/easy. I'd sooner sing/heartbreak nor cry it./But a baby's born, the baby/dies. Who knows anything?

O'Kelly's greatest achievement is "The Weaver's Grave," and it is perhaps the greatest Irish short story ever written, with Joyce's "The Dead" a close second. The narration is beautiful while the dialogue is unique, real, and very funny. The Weaver's young widow must see that her aged husband's body is buried in a specific location in "the meadow of the dead" according to his wishes, wishes that were never specified to her. O'Kelly masterfully renders the subtle nature of her transformation from servant/wife to liberated woman as she sets about this task under the seemingly watchful and guiding light of Venus, the evening star. The conclusion, though somewhat surprising given the main plot, should not be totally unexpected, since it is the climax to another -- almost hidden -- plot that is ultimately more meaningful. This story is a slice of Irish life at the turn of the twentieth century but it is also universal in its artistry.

This is a good book to use in tandem with Muldoon's Faber Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry and Crotty's Modern Irish Poetry for the understanding of contemporary Irish poetry. It allocates its main space to Kinsella, Heaney, Montague, Mahon, Muldoon and Durcan, in that order. Some of the poets may hold the substantial space allotted to them because they were important two and three decades ago, but this anthology nonetheless sparkles in the selections it makes from these poets, and in the inclusion of Deane, Grennan, Mathews and Sirr. The editor Mahon has made an outstanding selection from his own work, and the book is a good introduction to the important, mischievous work of Michael Hartnett. As an anthology it has a unified and valid character all its own in the presentation of contemporary Irish poetry.