The Poems by Derek Mahon; Far District by Ishion Hutchinson; Stones by Kevin Young; and Like A Tree, Walking by Vahni Capildeo
The Poemsby Derek Mahon(Gallery Press, €22.50)
With Derek Mahon’s death in October 2020, the world lost one of the great modern lyric poets. From Night-Crossing (1968) to Washing Up (2020), he fashioned an oeuvre of rare elegance, wit and visionary reach. “Even now there are places where a thought might grow”, begins his best known poem, A Disused Shed in Co Wexford, snatching its moment of triumph from the violent panorama of history. Mahon was a lifelong self-revisioner, and monumental though it is, this post-revisions volume will not be to everyone’s taste, with some key omissions making it a Collected rather than a Complete Poems. Still, the work endures, “rinsing the choked mud, keeping the colours new”.