The Danger and the Glory
Hedwig Schwall (ed.)
The Danger and the Glory: Irish Authors on the Art of Writing
ISBN: 9781851322060
Contributors:
John Banville
Kevin Barry
Sara Baume
Sam Blake
Dermot Bolger
Lucy Caldwell
Jan Carson
Evelyn Conlon
Gavin Corbett
Celia de Fréine
Danny Denton
Martina Devlin
Gerard Donovan
Roddy Doyle
Catherine Dunne
Anne Enright
Wendy Erskine
Mia Gallagher
Anne Haverty
Neil Hegarty
Sophia Hillan
Rosemary Jenkinson
Claire Kilroy
Caitriona Lally
Paul Lynch
Bernard MacLaverty
Patrick McCabe
Molly McCloskey
Mike McCormack
Barry McCrea
Rosaleen McDonagh
Bernie McGill
Claire McGowan
Lisa McInerney
Belinda McKeon
Danielle McLaughlin
Alan McMonagle
Eoin McNamee
Emer Martin
Geraldine Mills
Lia Mills
Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Mary Morrissy
Paul Murray
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
Micheál Ó Conghaile
Billy O’Callaghan
Nuala O’Connor
Mary O’Donnell
Roisín O’Donnell
Nessa O’Mahony
Joseph O’Neill
Sean O’Reilly
David Park
Siobhán Parkinson
Glenn Patterson
Nicola Pierce
Kevin Power
Heather Richardson
Debbie Thomas
William Wall
Fintan O’Toole
James Liddy On Irish Literature and Identities
James Liddy
Eamonn Wall, editor
On Irish Literature and Identities
ISBN:
9781851320516 paperback
9781851320615 limited edition
On Irish Literature and Identities is the second of two volumes of James Liddy’s critical essays, following On American Literature and Diasporas(2013). Though it makes great swerves and has multiple frames of reference, On Irish Literature and Identities is framed by James Liddy’s intense and enduring attachment to Dublin. Even when he is looking beyond Dublin, as is the case in his essays on poets from the North of Ireland, he writes from a perspective heavily shaded by Dublin opinion. As a student James Liddy began to engage with Dublin’s literary and bohemian culture, and meeting Patrick Kavanagh was the singular event that changed his life. James Liddy writes about the writers he encountered during these years and brings alive a vanished world. Though this world was highly social, Liddy is interested in its literary aspect, the ways in which the literary and the social cross paths in bars, restaurants, lecture theatres, bookshops and in publishing houses. In many respects the world he describes is one in which barriers between public and private worlds are erased. Throughout these essays, Liddy engages with both the writers and their work and with the literary traditions from which they emerged. This is a book of literary-academic-and bohemian witness written in an engaging, brilliant, and unique voice.
James Liddy On American Literature And Diasporas
Eamonn Wall
On American Literature And Diasporas
ISBN:
9781851320448
On American Literature and Diasporas is the first of two volumes of James Liddy’s critical essays. In addition to providing unique insights into the work of American writers and Irish writers overseas, On American Literature and Diasporas includes first-hand accounts of meeting many of the canonical figures of contemporary American poetry: Anne Sexton, James Wright, William Stafford, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and others. Throughout, Liddy engages with both the writers and their work and with the literary traditions from which they emerged. Not only does On American Literature and Diasporas provide a first-hand literary account but it also lets us know what it felt like to live in America between 1967–2008. It is a book of literary-academic-and bohemian witness written in an engaging, brilliant, and unique voice.
James Liddy arrived in the United States on 11 September 1967 to take up a one-year visiting professor position at San Francisco State University and, with some minor breaks, continued teaching Irish and Irish-American Literature, Creative Writing and Beat Literature in various American Universities until his death in 2008. The greater part of his academic life was spent at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where he began teaching in 1976. Throughout his American career, James Liddy made frequent visits to Ireland and maintained a visible presence on the Irish literary scene as a member of Aosdána and as a frequent contributor to Irish journals and newspapers including The Irish Times. Best-known as a poet, his books were published by Dolmen Press, Salmon Poetry, Arlen House, amongst others.
Eamonn Wall is a Professor of English and International Studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. A native of Co. Wexford, he has lived in the USA since 1982. His most recent books are Writing the Irish West: Ecologies and Traditions (University of Notre Dame Press, 2011) and Sailing Lake Mareotis (Salmon Poetry, 2011).
James Liddy (1934–2008), a unique voice in Irish writing, was the author of many collections of poetry including In a Blue Smoke, Blue Mountain, Corca Bascinn, Wexford and Arcady and It Swings from Side to Side. He also published fiction and criticism and was a frequent reviewer of poetry in Ireland and the United States.
James Liddy was born in Lower Pembroke Street, Dublin, in 1934. His parents hailed from the cities of Limerick and New York. He lived in Coolgreany, Co. Wexford, intermittently from 1941 to 2000. His books include In a Blue Smoke (Dolmen, 1964), Blue Mountain (Dolmen, 1968), A Munster Song of Love and War (White Rabbit, 1971), Baudelaire’s Bar Flowers (Capra/White Rabbit, 1975), Corca Bascinn (Dolmen, 1977), Collected Poems (Creighton UP, 1994), Gold Set Dancing (Salmon, 2000), and from Arlen House, I Only Know that I Love Strength in My Friends and Greatness (2003), On the Raft with Fr. Roseliep (2006), Wexford and Arcady (2008), Askeaton Sequence (2008), Fest City (2010), It Swings from Side to Side (2011), Rome That Heavenly Country (2011) and Selected Poems, edited by John Redmond (2011). He was a Professor in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for many years, where he taught creative writing and Irish and Beat literature. James Liddy: A Critical Study by Brian Arkins was published by Arlen House in 2001 and the widely acclaimed Honeysuckle, Honeyjuice: A Tribute to James Liddy,edited by Michael S. Begnal, appeared in 2006. The first volume of his memoir, The Doctor’s House: An Autobiography was published by Salmon in 2004, with volume two, The Full Shilling, appearing in 2009. James Liddy passed away on 5 November 2008 following a short illness.
To suggest that Liddy is a good critic because he is a good poet tells only part of the truth. Of course lessons learned from the practice of writing helped him understand and read literature uniquely; however, Liddy’s gifts as a critic are also the result of a lifetime of intense reading and deep thought that add depth, nuance and moral compass to his criticism.
– Eamonn Wall
