Derek Mahon was particularly incensed by this coup, and publicly questioned Muldoon's regional bias in an Irish Times review. Of the ten poets featured in Muldoon's anthology, seven were from Northern Ireland. Padraic Fiacc's 1974 The Wearing of the Black met with near universal scorn from the literary community in the North, who saw it as a crass attempt to exploit "Troubles poetry." Paul Muldoon's 1986 Faber Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry was also controversial, though not for political reasons. In Northern Ireland, anthology battles have been similarly charged. In England during the fifties and sixties, Al Alvarez and Robert Conquest famously traded insults in New Lines and The New Poetry. Wake Forest University Press/2008/$19.95 PAPER/ISBN 9781930630352Īnthologies are often a means for young writers to differentiate themselves from their literary predecessors. THE NEW NORTH: CONTEMPORARY POETRY FROM NORTHERN IRELAND edited by Chris Agee
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