Since the publication of his first book in 1967, Paul Durcan has made satirical, celebratory and extraordinarily moving poetry out of his country's fortunes and misfortunes. His readings are legendary and each new collection, from his collaboration with Brain Lynch, Endsville (1967) to Daddy, Daddy (winner of the 1990 Whitbread Poetry Award), Crazy about Women (1991) and Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (1999) has borne out the truth of Ezra Pound's dictum that "literature is news that stays news". This book contains Durcan's own selection from his work. It is a literary milestone that has set the seal on his reputation as a poet of international standing.

Since the publication of his first book in 1967, Paul Durcan has made satirical, celebratory and extraordinarily moving poetry out of his country's fortunes and misfortunes. His readings are legendary and each new collection, from his collaboration with Brain Lynch, Endsville (1967) to Daddy, Daddy (winner of the 1990 Whitbread Poetry Award), Crazy about Women (1991) and Greetings to Our Friends in Brazil (1999) has borne out the truth of Ezra Pound's dictum that "literature is news that stays news". This book contains Durcan's own selection from his work. It is a literary milestone that has set the seal on his reputation as a poet of international standing.

Russia's poets hold a special place in Russian culture, perhaps revealing more about their country than poets within any other nation. In this unique and wide-ranging collection of writings on poets and poetic trends in Russia, contributors from the United States, Britain, and Russia examine the place of poetry in Russian culture. Through a variety of critical approaches, these scholars, translators, and poets consider a broad cross section of Russian poets, from Pushkin to Brodsky, Shvarts, and Kibirov.

From Swift's repulsive shit-flinging Yahoos to Beckett's dying but never quite dead moribunds, Irish literature has long been perceived as being synonymous with subversion and all forms of subversiveness. But what constitutes a subversive text or a subversive writer in twenty-first-century Ireland? The essays in this volume set out to redefine and rethink the subversive potential of modern Irish literature. Crossing three central genres, one common denominator running through these essays whether dealing with canonical writers like Yeats, Beckett and Flann O'Brien, or lesser known contemporary writers like Sebastian Barry or Robert McLiam Wilson, is the continual questioning of Irish identity - Irishness - going from its colonial paradigm and stereotype of the subaltern in MacGill, to its uneasy implications for gender representation in the contemporary novel and the contemporary drama. A subsidiary theme inextricably linked to the identity problematic is that of exile and its radical heritage for all Irish writing irrespective of its different genres. Sub-Versions offers a cross-cultural and trans-national response to the expanding interest in Irish and postcolonial studies by bringing together specialists from different national cultures and scholarly contexts - Ireland, Britain, France and Central Europe. The order of the essays is by genre. This study is aimed both at the general literary reader and anyone particularly interested in Irish Studies.

In the last fifty years Irish poets have produced some of the most exciting poetry in contemporary literature, writing about love and sexuality, violence and history, country and city. This book, first published in 2003, provides an introduction to major figures such as Seamus Heaney, and also introduces the reader to significant precursors like Louis MacNeice or Patrick Kavanagh, and vital contemporaries and successors: among others, Thomas Kinsella, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paul Muldoon. Readers will find discussions of Irish poetry from the traditional to the modernist, written in Irish as well as English, from both North and South. This Companion provides cultural and historical background to contemporary Irish poetry in the contexts of modern Ireland but also in the broad currents of modern world literature. It includes a chronology and guide to further reading and will prove invaluable to students and teachers alike.

In the first ever anthology of its kind, Canada’s premier sportswriter — Globe and Mail columnist and author of the internationally acclaimed bestseller Facing Ali — brings together the best writing on sport in this country, with a strong contemporary flavour. It’s all here: classic reports on Canada’s great sporting triumphs, from Joe Carter’s World Series–winning home run for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993 to the excitement of the back-to-back men’s and women’s hockey gold medals in Salt Lake City. Stephen Brunt gives an entire section to writers who, unlike those covering other beats, must work tightly by the clock, submitting their stories just as soon as the action for the day is over. But he has also chosen our best writers’ more thoughtful pieces on our national obsessions — such as Ed Willes on the WHA’s seven tumultuous years and Wayne Johnston on the Original Six — and a good sampling of the great sportswriters such as Trent Frayne, Peter Gzowski and Milt Dunnell. The net effect is an examination of the deep role sport plays in our lives and imaginations, in our sense of self and nationhood. Stephen Brunt has cast his net widely. He includes superb stories of lower profile Canadian sports such as wrestling and horse racing, even Monster Truck battles, and allows space for his own unequalled and unforgettable profiles of Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, as well as his post-mortem on Ben Johnson’s fall from grace. Full of triumph and heartbreak, great writing and great passions — and a few wonderful surprises — this book will be essential reading for every serious sports fan. Including: • Ian Brown on the stud-horse business • Christie Blatchford on the 2003 Women’s Olympic Hockey Gold • Rosie DiManno on the Men’s • James Christie on Ben Johnson’s 1988 Olympic triumph in Seoul • Michael Faber on Pat Burns • Red Fisher on Lemieux and Gretzky at the 1987 Canada Cup • Trent Frayne on Canadian Open golf champ Ken Green deciding to play Sun City during apartheid • Bruce Grierson on Canada’s best squash player • Peter Gzowski on the Oilers with Gretzky • Tom Hawthorn on John Brophy’s last brawl • Brian Hutchinson on Owen Hart’s widow’s revenge • Wayne Johnston on the Montreal Canadiens • Guy Lawson on curling • Allan Maki on the 1989 Hamilton–Saskatchewan Grey Cup • Dave Perkins on the biggest home run in World Series history • Mordecai Richler on snooker’s Cliff Thorburn • Steve Simmons on Donovan Bailey • Mike Ulmer on Cujo’s charm and more…