"Even So reveals the extent to which Mark Roper's move from the UK to the Kilkenny countryside in 1980 has liberated his imagination and, by allowing him to report on lived, day-to-day experience, helped him to become an extraordinarily distinguished 'nature poet'—or, perhaps the better term, 'poetic naturalist'. Ireland's gift to the poet has been an environment that is still relatively unspoiled, and continues to permit ancient harmonious relationships between land-working humans and the birds, beasts, woodland, pools and pastures with which their lives interweave. Roper's gift to his adopted home, and to the great poetic tradition of 'nature writing' in these islands, is laid out here, in this wonderfully varied miscellany of new work and selections from his earlier volumes."
Carol Rumens, from the Introduction
"Even So is an absolute delight and a superb achievement"
Paul Perry, The Irish Times
"He is a careful and acute observer of the natural world of the countryside, with the gift of presenting his images so as to create a pictorial world into which the reader can step as a lone and individual visitor. He can express joy at the beauty of nature and also wonder at its impenetrable or inscrutable grandeur."
Hugh McFadden, Books Ireland
"Mark Roper's third collection [Whereabouts] is like an accidentally discovered bird's nest of eggs: warm, beautifully coloured, pulsing with life. He looks with extraordinary care at the natural world, its force, variety, proximity and difference… Such praise and such astonishment, such accommodation of darkness and light, make Whereabouts a place we should all inhabit for a little while."
Eamon Grennan, The Irish Times
Mark Roper was born in England in 1951, moving to Ireland in 1980; he has lived at Tobernabrone, Co. Kilkenny ever since. His poetry collections include The Hen Ark (1999), which won the 1992 Aldeburgh Prize for best first collection, Catching The Light (1997), The Home Fire (1998) and Whereabouts (2005). He was Editor of Poetry Ireland Review for 1999. An experienced Creative Writing teacher, he currently works in adult education in Waterford and Kilkenny and has run courses and workshops in schools, prisons and senior citizen centres. Even So: New & Selected Poems confirms him as "one of the most accomplished and engaging poets writing in Ireland at present" (Bill Tinley, Irish Literary Supplement).
Carol Rumens, from the Introduction
"Even So is an absolute delight and a superb achievement"
Paul Perry, The Irish Times
"He is a careful and acute observer of the natural world of the countryside, with the gift of presenting his images so as to create a pictorial world into which the reader can step as a lone and individual visitor. He can express joy at the beauty of nature and also wonder at its impenetrable or inscrutable grandeur."
Hugh McFadden, Books Ireland
"Mark Roper's third collection [Whereabouts] is like an accidentally discovered bird's nest of eggs: warm, beautifully coloured, pulsing with life. He looks with extraordinary care at the natural world, its force, variety, proximity and difference… Such praise and such astonishment, such accommodation of darkness and light, make Whereabouts a place we should all inhabit for a little while."
Eamon Grennan, The Irish Times
Mark Roper was born in England in 1951, moving to Ireland in 1980; he has lived at Tobernabrone, Co. Kilkenny ever since. His poetry collections include The Hen Ark (1999), which won the 1992 Aldeburgh Prize for best first collection, Catching The Light (1997), The Home Fire (1998) and Whereabouts (2005). He was Editor of Poetry Ireland Review for 1999. An experienced Creative Writing teacher, he currently works in adult education in Waterford and Kilkenny and has run courses and workshops in schools, prisons and senior citizen centres. Even So: New & Selected Poems confirms him as "one of the most accomplished and engaging poets writing in Ireland at present" (Bill Tinley, Irish Literary Supplement).