Description
Book SynopsisThis extraordinary collection brings together the entirety of his work up0 to 2003 that Trevor Joyce wishes to preserve. Joyce is Ireland's most stimulating late-modernist poet, unrepentantly engaging the global modernist tradition at a time when it would seem to many that Irish writers, north or south, prefer to hunker down and be parochial.
Trade Review"I find myself almost surprised, after having lived with this book for several months, at how difficult I now find it to think of the landscape of contemporary poetry without this body of work. It is a book that deserves to find a wide and diverse readership." Nate Dorward, Chicago Review) "This book collects work since 1966, but about three-quarters of it consists of poems written in the last seven or so years, witness to a quite remarkable flowering of Joyce's talent. The work is consistently interesting, formally engaging, wide-ranging and risky: altogether an unmissable collection." (Peter Sirr, Poetry Ireland Review) "The later poems in With the first dream of fire are extraordinary ... Joyce's inventiveness, restlessness, range - these qualities in operation and not simply packaged in last year's Christmas wrapping - are simply stunning. The title of this review ['with the fire in him now'] is borrowed from Krapp's Last Tape. 'Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn't want them back. [Krapp motionless staring before him. The tape runs on in silence.]' Krapp's closing words test an actor's control at the limits of ability; a prick of compromise deflates pretension entirely. Joyce's writing produces that same white sound again and again, which is the highest praise." (J.C.C. Mays, Dublin Review)
