A major voice of twentieth-century Irish poetry, Austin Clarke reshaped the country’s literary landscape through his groundbreaking translations from the Irish and his revival of Irish-language metres and forms – work that continues to influence poets today. Just as significant is his attention to the world around him, to particular Irish places, and to mid-century lives.

This new selection brings Clarke into vivid focus as a poet of ‘other voices’, enabling his readers to reach across time and place to recover what history tried to silence. Once censored for his fearless critique of the Catholic state, Clarke’s writing is determinedly various, its lyric intensities matched by piercing narratives and sharp satire. As vital and enduring as his peers, Patrick Kavanagh and Thomas Kinsella, this lifetime’s work presents a continually shrewd, impassioned perspective on Ireland and its literary history.