Mosoon Diary - Dedalus Press, poetry from Ireland and the world

By Joseph Woods

Monsoon Diary

Between the birth of the poet’s daughter and the deaths of his parents, the poems in Monsoon Diary attempt to make sense of the world, from a mid-life flight from home en famille to new perspectives on both the past and the future.

Monsoon Diary strikes an often elegiac tone, betraying a growing awareness of mortality and the many losses that come with age. But it also bears witness to a country transitioning from dictatorship to democracy, finds the seeds of a new half-crown of sonnets in a line of Catullus, and, in Driving to Delvin, a poem of 84 couplets, breaks out into a kind of road movie of spirited and sometimes random association, bringing all of the book’s many themes and ideas, its fears and hopes, together in a celebration of forward motion, of living itself.

“A thoroughly delightful collection to delve into for individual favourites.”— Headstuff.org

 

€12.50

All Poetry, Poetry from Ireland

Description

Between the birth of the poet’s daughter and the deaths of his parents, the poems in Monsoon Diary attempt to make sense of the world, from a mid-life flight from home en famille to new perspectives on both the past and the future.

Monsoon Diary strikes an often elegiac tone, betraying a growing awareness of mortality and the many losses that come with age.

But it also bears witness to a country transitioning from dictatorship to democracy, finds the seeds of a new half-crown of sonnets in a line of Catullus, and, in Driving to Delvin, a poem of 84 couplets, breaks out into a kind of road movie of spirited and sometimes random association, bringing all of the book’s many themes and ideas, its fears and hopes, together in a celebration of forward motion, of living itself.

“In Monsoon Diary I found a host of fresh and golden poems for the keeping. Adding layers to my visions of Myanmar and of what it means to live a life between different homes, Woods makes even the most iconic of Myanmar’s images shine with new light.”
— Amy Doffegnies, Mekong Review, Aug/Sept 2019

“His voice is easy, melodic, seeming sometimes casual, sometimes deceptively smooth but always alert. If Woods is technically expert it is not to dazzle but to reveal his subject matter … his work taken as a whole shows an impressive reach
and range. …”
— Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

“The strength [of the poems] lies so much in their alert poise to the subtlest nuances of melancholy, nostalgia, present absorption and timeless epiphany.”
—Matthew Clegg, Staple

 

Product Detail

  • ISBN: : 978-1-910251-35-5
  • Size: : 140 x 216 mm
  • Pages: : 80 approx
  • Published: : April 2018

About The Author

Author

JOSEPH WOODS was born in Drogheda in 1966. He now lives with his wife and daughter in Harare, Zimbabwe where he works as an independent writer. Woods’ peregrinations have involved extensive travels in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa; he has also lived in Kyoto, Japan and more recently in Yangon, Myanmar. After initial studies in biology and chemistry, Woods eventually took an MA in Poetry and subsequently became Poetry Ireland’s longest serving director until 2013 when he emigrated. Joseph Woods’ first collection, Sailing to Hokkaido (Worple Press, 2001) was awarded the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award and Bearings (Worple Press, 2005) followed. Dedalus Press reissued Woods' first two poetry collections in one volume entitled Cargo (2010), and have published his poetry since. Woods’ third collection Ocean Letters (Dedalus Press, 2011) when translated into Hungarian by Tomas Kabdebó, was awarded the Irodalmi Jelen Prize in 2013. The critically acclaimed Monsoon Diary (Dedalus Press, 2018), Woods’ fourth collection, was based in part on his experience of living in Burma. Woods has edited numerous poetry publications, including Our Shared Japan (Dedalus Press, 2007) co-edited with Irene de Angelis; an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry concerning Japan with an accompanying essay by Seamus Heaney. With Gerard Smyth he co-edited The Poetry Project, a web anthology of visual artists and filmmakers interpreting selected poems. Woods is consulting editor to the poetry journal Cyphers and has edited anthologies of Burmese and Zimbabwean poetry for the journal. In 2014 and 2019, Woods was a recipient of the Katherine and Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship, and in 2016 and 2020, he was awarded an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary. In Zimbabwe, Woods has edited a history of the Irish in Rhodesia and Zimbabwe and is working on a life of Burmese chronicler, Maurice Collis. He frequently contributes to radio, newspapers and journals. “A poet with the whole world in his hip-pocket.” — James J McAuley

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