Following his acclaimed memoir The Invisible Prison (Dedalus Press, 2009), Pat Boran’s first full-length collection of poems in over a decade sees him explore questions of love, belonging and connection, recognising that challenges both small and great may lead to new beginnings.
Despite echoing the promise of religious belief, The Next Life of the title is to be found entirely in the here-and-now and the near-to-hand, in the play of sparrows on a lawn, the death-exploring game of his two small children (‘Let’s Die’), and in the trust and faith of lovers whispering together ‘words never uttered before’.
“Amongst the most tantalising poetry being written in Ireland.”
Fortnight
“The lightness of his syntactic touch is masterly.”
Bernard O’Donoghue, The Irish Times
“A writer of great tenderness and lyricism.”
Agenda
Pat Boran was born in Portlaoise, Ireland in 1963 and currently lives in Dublin. Since his New and Selected Poems in 2005, he has edited the Dedalus Press anthologies Shine On (2011) and The Bee-Loud Glade (2011). He is a former editor of Poetry Ireland Review and presenter of The Poetry Programme on RTÉ Radio 1. In 2008 he received the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry in the USA.