In this book, Eric Falci reshapes the story of Irish poetry since the 1960s.

He shows how polemical arguments concerning the role of poetry in 1960s Ireland evolve into a set of formal and compositional strategies for emerging Irish poets in the mid 1970s and beyond.

His study presents a cohesive picture of the relationship between Northern Irish poetry from the Republic of Ireland since World War II and traces the lineage of lyric practice from a unique historical perspective.

At the same time, it recontextualizes late twentieth-century Irish poetry within the long Irish poetic tradition, places Irish writing more accurately within the field of postwar Anglophone poetry and offers a new account of lyric's critical capacities.

Of interest to Irish studies and twentieth-century poetry specialists, this book provides a much-needed guide to some of the most inventive and notable poetry written in the past forty years.