Hedge School is Irish poet Pat Boran’s 8th collection of poems, finding inspiration and consolation in the local and near-at-hand, in the examples of our neighbours (human and creaturely), in the roots and shoots of what turns out to be a vibrant global network.
Against a backdrop of climate concern and increasing international unrest, Hedge School responds to the subjects of home and homelessness, belonging and welcome, knowledge and discovery, putting its faith in connection and communication, and trusting in small but robust forms to stand against the chill winds of our troubled and troubling times.
“[A] mature, necessary, rewarding collection.”
—Richard Hayes, Poetry Ireland Review“Along with his seemingly endlessly interweaving of strands, he can also really knock out an individual poem that says something. At the same time as creating a nest of associations, he is also constructing a honeycomb of really cracking stand-alone poems – where content, and form cohere. He doesn’t tend toward end-stopped lines with clear rhyme, but dynamic poems driven along via enjambement and internal cohesion – repetitions, alliteration, verb patternings, from present continuous to past, offering delightful cadences… All the above, hardly touches the sides of the wealth of his associations which, with each reading, will set you off on a new path: the nature of, and entitlement to education, the choice to destroying or protecting the environment, the dynamics of power and colonisation…..to mention just a few. Add to this poems and sequences in the collection that are available on YouTube as poetry films and there really is some lovely stuff here.”
—Belinda Cooke, The High Window“A writer of great tenderness and lyricism”
— Agenda, UK“… local and international, personal and scientific, full of wisdom and wry humor …”
— Irish Literary Supplement, USA“Boran knows the fragility of being human and alive, the tragedy and the absurdity, but his perspective is optimistic, life-affirming”
—The High Window (on Pat Boran’s Then Again, 2019)
See also www.patboran.com
Hedge School
Pat Boran
80pp approx
140 x 216 mm
26 Nov, 2024
ISBN 9781915629319 Paperback
ISBN 9781915629302 hardbound
