The Pleasure Ground: Poems 1952-2012

By Richard Murphy

Richard Murphy, now in his eighties, is one of Ireland's most distinguished poets, known particularly for poems drawing on the people and history of the west of Ireland with classical rigour and 'unvarnished' clarity. He emerged in the 1950s with John Montague and Thomas Kinsella as one of the three major poets in the new Irish poetic renaissance. The Pleasure Ground expands the scope of his much acclaimed Collected Poems of 2000 to include a selection of new poems along with an appendix featuring illuminating commentary on the historical and personal background of some of his most notable work, including 'The Cleggan Disaster', 'The God Who Eats Corn', The Battle of Aughrim, and the poems of High Island. 'Oscillating from beginning to end and from page to page between narrative and lyric, public and private, love poem and elegy, The Pleasure Ground is a hugely significant achievement. Now well into his ninth decade, Richard Murphy continues to be a poet of great fortitude and resource, one of the finest of our time.' - Michael Longley, The Irish Times. Poetry Book Society Special Commendation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Mar 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780370866

Richard Murphy

Richard Murphy is a retired Boston attorney who had served as an Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) and First Assistant District Attorney (Norfolk County) in addition to serving as a partner in a private law firm. He is a graduate of Boston College High School,Univ. of Notre Dame & Boston Univ. School of Law. He served aboard ship in the U.S.Navy between college and law school and retired as a Commander in the Naval Reserves.As a champion boxer at Notre Dame he went on to become a NationalPresident of the ND Alumni Association. The father of nine children, he wrote a weekly column “Murphy’s Law” for several Massachusetts papers in the 80’s & 90’s. He was featured in the Law section of Time magazine(1/7/66) for winning a landmark civil liberty case. With Parkinson’s disease and a reverse shoulder replacement ruining his mediocre golf game he decided to try authoring and having received encouraging feedback he is now attempting to write entertaining books connected to interesting court cases.