Publisher's Synopsis
With bog paintings by Brenda Fitzmaurice.
"The collection affirms, with a fine balance, a margin of hope in a battered but beautiful world."
Declan Kiberd
"Deeply moving. I bless your Road to Autumn!"
Les Murray
Praise for Gabriel Fitzmaurice:
"[T]he best contemporary, traditional, popular poet in English."
Ray Olson, Booklist (US)
"Fitzmaurice is a wonderful poet."
Giles Foden, The Guardian
"One of Ireland's favourite poets."
Books Ireland
"Gabriel Fitzmaurice's… ballads… are comparable with Burns's for their insights and lyricism."
James J. McAuley, The Irish Times
"Ireland, particularly the South… finds its local bard in Gabriel Fitzmaurice… thereby making such 'singing' socially responsible in a way Wordsworth would have endorsed."
Francis O'Hare, The Honest Ulsterman
"We need poets who can probe reality like this, and Fitzmaurice is doing it in style."
Gerard Quinn, The Kerryman
"He has a gift for making the quotidian interesting and investing the ordinary with extraordinary significance."
Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, The Celtic Pen
"Gabriel Fitzmaurice finds truths that speak to us all."
Moyra Donaldson, Figments (Belfast)
Gabriel Fitzmaurice was born in 1952 in the village of Moyvane, Co. Kerry, where he still lives. For over thirty years he taught in the local primary school from which he retired as principal in 2007. He is author of more than forty books, including collections of poetry in English and Irish as well as several collections of verse for children. He has translated extensively from the Irish and has edited a number of anthologies of poetry in English and Irish. He has published two volumes of essays and collections of songs and ballads. A cassette of his poems, The Space Between: New and Selected Poems 1984-1992 is also available. He frequently broadcasts on radio and television on education and the arts.
