Book Of Irish American Poetry

<p>This is the first major anthology of Irish American poetry. It breaks new ground in the field of Irish American literary scholarship by collecting for the first time the work of over two hundred Irish American poets, as well as other American poets whose work enjoins Irish American themes. </p><p>What does it mean to be an Irish American poet? <i>The Book of Irish American Poetry</i> answers this question by drawing together the best and most representative poetry by Irish Americans and about Irish America that has been written over the past three hundred years. The question is not merely rhetorical, claims Daniel Tobin in the introduction, for it raises the issue of a certain kind of imaginative identity that has rarely, if ever, been adequately explored. This anthology brings together exemplary poetry of the "populist period"of Irish American verse (in particular the work of poets such as John Boyle O''Reilly), with the work of those Irish Americans who have made an indelible impr