Stones and Stars

Paul Murray’s third and fourth collections of poems, The Absent Fountain (1992) and These Black Stars (2003) are still  sought-after and admired: the precision and economy of the language is exemplary, its concentrated focus well suited for the task in hand. Murray’s is a mystical journey, informed by the vocabulary and symbols of the spiritual quest, and he regularly engages the reader – and indeed God – in dialogue, drawing us into an exploration of memory and desire, of dream, darkness and rebirth. The closing poem, paradoxically entitled “Beginning”, at once celebrates and challenges: “I have come through / after all. I have a new / dawn on my shoulders.”

“The Absent Fountain is the product of a passionate and sometimes playful mind, which teases out paradoxes, making the absent seem palpably present and the material seem ultimately immaterial. It is, in every sense, an inspired work.”
– Dennis O’Driscoll, Doctrine & Life