Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill: New and Selected Poems Book

John F. Deane is a vital and generous presence in Irish poetry. "New and Selected Poems" gathers work from Deane's five previous "Carcanet" collections alongside a new sequence "Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill". Written with an inquiring intelligence these poems of a dozen years meditate on the relevance of Christian spirituality to our troubled times. Each of the twelve poems in the title sequence presents a movement of the spirit from the author's childhood in the west of Ireland through the death of a wife to the birth of a grandchild. Arranged in the manner of an orchestral symphony each section takes its cue from a different piece of music from Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" to Mozart's "Laudate Dominum". The sequence traces phase by phase the development of a Christian life. Faith in its broadest sense is inflected by imagination.Read More