Poetry Bookshop Online

Ian Duhig has long inspired a fervent and devoted following. With the "Lammas Hireling" - the title poem having already won both the National Poetry Competition and the Forward Prize for Best Poem - Duhig has produced his most accessible and exciting volume to date, and looks set to reach a whole new audience. A poet of lightning wit and great erudition, Duhig is also a master balladeer and storyteller who shows that poetry is still the most powerful way in which our social history - our lives, loves and work - can be celebrated and commemorated. "The most original poet of his generation". (Carol Ann Duffy, "GUARDIAN"). "His poetry is learned, rude, elegant, sly and funny, mixing gilded images, belly-laughs and esoteric lore about language (including Irish), art, history, politics and children's word-games". (Ruth Padel, "Independent On Sunday". "Duhig telescopes topical allusions, scholarly references and coarse humour into tightly-shaped, surreal poems which burst open with explosive moral force". (Alan Brownjohn, "Sunday Times").