By Mark Roper

Even So: New and Selected Poems

Comprehensive overview of the work of UK-born, longtime resident of Co. Kilkenny Mark Roper, one of the most admired nature poets of his generation.

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Description

Comprehensive overview of the work of UK-born, longtime resident of Co. Kilkenny Mark Roper, one of the most admired nature poets of his generation

“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

SBN 9781906614010 Hardback

ISBN 9781904556992 Paperback
140 x 216 mm, 170 pp
2008

Product Detail

  • ISBN: : 9781904556992
  • Size: : 216 x 140 mm
  • Pages: : 170 pp
  • Published: : 2008

About The Author

Author

MARK ROPER was born in Derbyshire, England in 1951. He moved to Ireland in 1980. His collections include The Hen Ark (Peterloo, 1990), which won the 1992 Aldeburgh Prize for best first collection, Catching The Light (Peterloo, 1997) and The Home Fire (Abbey Press, 1998). Reviewing the latter for The Irish Literary Supplement, Bill Tinley described Roper as "one of the most accomplished and engaging poets writing in Ireland at present". Whereabouts was published in 2005 by Abbey Press & Peterloo and Even So: New & Selected Poems was published by Dedalus Press in 2008. His latest collection, Bindweed, (Dedalus Press, 2017), has received excellent reviews and was shortlisted for The Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2018. A Gather of Shadow, Dedalus 2012, was also shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award and won the Michael Hartnett Award in 2014. The River Book: A Celebration of the Suir, a collaboration with photographer Paddy Dwan, was published in 2010. The pair have since published 2 further collaborations, The Backstrand (2013), and Comeragh (2018). They are currently at work on a book about the County Waterford coastline. The Invader, an opera composed by Eric Sweeney to a libretto by Mark Roper, was premièred in Ireland in May 2014. A second opera from the pair, The Green One, received its première in October 2016. Mark Roper has also worked on many other collaborative ventures, including projects with photographer Margaret O’Brien-Moran, painter Susan Hughes and choreographer Libby Seward. Mark was Editor of Poetry Ireland Review for 1999. He was the recipient of Arts Council Bursaries in 2010, 2013 and 2016. A highly experienced Creative Writing teacher, Mark has run courses and workshops in many different settings, including schools, prisons, and senior citizen centres. From September 2002 to May 2003 he was writer-in-residence at Waterford Regional Hospital. Website: http://www.mark-roper.com/