Neil Corcoran, ed., The Chosen Ground: Essays on the Contemporary Poetry of Northern Ireland (Brigend, Mid Glamorgan: Seren Books; Dufour 1992), 288pp.

CONTENTS: Gerald Dawe, ‘Invocation of Powers’ John Montague’ [15]; Stan Smith, ‘Seamus Heaney: The distance between’ [35]; Peter McDonald, ‘Michael Longley’s Homes’ [65]; Hugh Haughton, ‘”Even now there are places where a thought might grow”: Places and Displacement in the Poetry of Derek Mahon’ [87]; Clair Wills, ‘The Lie of the Land: Language, Imperialism and Trade in Paul Muldoon’s Meeting the British [123]; Richard Brown, ‘Bog Poems and Book Poems: Doubleness, Self-Transition and Pun in Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon’ [153]; Bernard O’Donoghue, ‘’Involved Imagings: Tom Paulin’ [171]; Thomas Docherty, ‘Initiation, Tempers, Seductions: Postmodern McGuckian’ [191]; Corcoran, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Ciaran Carson’s The Irish for No’ [213]; John Kerrigan, ‘Ulster Ovids’ [237]; Selected Bibl. [270]; Index. [279]; notes on contributors [287].

Gen. Bibliography
  • Brown, Terence, Northern Voices: Poets from Ulster (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1975).
  • Brown, Terence, Ireland’s Literature (Gigginstown: Lilliput Press 1988) [includes ‘A Northern Renaissance: Poets from the North of Ireland 1965-1980’].
  • Brown, Terence and Nicholas Grene, eds., Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Irish Poetry, (London: Macmillan 1989) [includes Brendan Kennelly’s ‘Derek Mahon’s Humane Perspective’ and Edna Longley’s ‘Poetic Forms and Social Malformations’].
  • Connolly, Peter, ed., Literature and the Changing Ireland (Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe 1982) [includes D.E.S. Maxwell’s ‘Semantic Scruples: A Rhetoric for Politics in the North’].
  • Dawe, Gerald and Longley, Edna, eds., Across a Roaring Hill: The Protestant Imagination in Modern Ireland, (Belfast: Blackstaff 1985) [includes Dawe’s ‘Icon and Lares: Derek Mahon and Michael Longley’].
  • Deane, Seamus, A Short History of Irish Literature (London: Hutchinson 1986).
  • Deane, Seamus, Celtic Revivals (London: Faber & Faber 1985) [includes essays on Montague, Mahon and Heaney].
  • Donoghue, Denis, We Irish (Brighton: Harvester Press 1986).
  • Dunn, Douglas, ed., Two Decades of Irish Writing (Manchester: Carcanet 1975; Chester Springs: Dufour Editions).
  • Damian Grant, ‘The Voice of History in British Poetry 1970-1984’, in Études Anglaises, 38, 2 (April/June 1985) [compares Heaney, Mahon, Tony Harrison and James Fenton].
  • McHugh, Roger, intro., Ireland’s Field Day (London: Hutchinson 1985) [incl. Seamus Heaney’s An Open Letter].
  • Garratt, Robert F., Modern Irish Poetry: Tradition and Continuity from Yeats to Heaney (California UO 1986; rev. edn. 1989).
  • Haffenden, John, Viewpoints: Poets in Conversation (London: Faber & Faber 1981) [incl. interviews with Heaney, Muldoon and Paulin].
  • Harmon, Maurice, ed., The Irish Writer and the City, Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe 1984 [includes Gerald Dawe’s ‘The Permanent City: The Younger Irish Poets’].
  • Hederman, M. P. and Kearney, Richard, eds., The Crane Bag Book of Irish Studies (Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe 1983. [err.].
  • Hyland, Paul and Neil Sammells, eds., Irish Writing: Exile and Subversion (London: Macmillan 1991) [includes Neil Corcoran’s ‘Strange Letters: Reading and Writing in Contemporary Irish Poetry’].
  • Johnston, Dillon, Irish Poetry After Joyce, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press and Mountrath: Dolmen Press 1985).
  • Kearney, Richard, Transitions: Narratives in Modern Irish Culture, Manchester: Manchester University Press 1987 [includes an Heideggerian reading of Heaney].
  • Kenneally) Michael (ed ), Cultural Contexts and Literary Idioms in - Contemporary Irish Literature, Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe, 01988 [includes relevant essays by Anthony Bradley, Edna Longley, Michael Toolan, John Wilson Foster, Dillon Johnston, Gerald Dawe, Arthur E. McGuinness and Anthony Roche].
  • Longley, Edna, Poetry in the Wars, Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books 1986 [includes individual essays on Heaney, Mahon and Muldoon and the long polemical essay ‘Poetry and Politics in Northern Ireland’].
  • Morrison, Blake and Motion, Andrew (eds.), The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1982 [the introduction offers one account of the significance of Northern Irish poetry in the history of ‘British’ writing].
  • Ormsby, Frank, Northern Windows: An Anthology of Ulster Autobiography, Belfast: Blackstaff 1987 [includes Michael Longley’s ‘Tu’penny Stung’].
  • Ormsby, Frank, Poets from the North of Ireland (new edition), Belfast: BlackstaffPress 1990 [an anthology of 27 poets with a lengthy introduction by the editor.].
  • Robinson, Alan, Instabilities in Contemporary British Poetry, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan 1988 [includes chapters on Heaney and Paulin and comments on McGuckian].
  • Sekine, Masaru, ed., Irish Writers and Society at Large, Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe 1985 [includes George Watson’s ‘The Narrow Ground: Northern Poets and the Northern Ireland Crisis’].
  • Yearbook of English Studies: British Poetry Since 1945 Special Number, Vol. 17 (1987) [includes essays by John Haffenden and Neil Corcoran on Heaney; by Arthur E. McGuinness on Mahon; and by Blake Morrison and Edward Larrissy making substantial reference to some Northern poets].

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