The vitality, richness and range of Irish poetry over the last forty years, together with the strength of its traditions, are vividly demonstrated in this collection.

The anthology includes generous selections of poems by such exemplary and celebrated figures as Thomas Kinsella, John Montague and Seamus Heaney and, among younger poets, Paul Muldoon, Paul Durcan and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. It introduces to an international audience a number of poets whose work is insufficiently known outside Ireland (representing, moreover, the dual traditions they inherit) and includes some poems in Irish, with translations.

Irish poetry features at the forefront of modern writing in English, which these varied voices extend and enhance.