Northern Irish Poetry ― The American Connection

Taking a different approach from other studies of Northern Irish poetry which locate it within an Irish or British literary history, this book aims to elucidate its powerful transcultural dynamics, with specific reference to its American connections. Thus, through discussion of the ways in which major Northern Irish poets (Ciaran Carson, Padraic Fiacc, John Hewitt, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Geraroid MacLochlainn, Louis MacNeice, Medbh McGuckian, John Montague, Paul Muldoon, Frank Ormsby) have been influenced by America, this study shows how Northern Irish poetry overspills national borders, complicating and enriching itself through cross-cultural interaction and hybridity, or struggles to preserve a sense of unique identity and local attachment in the face of globalization, interstitial migrancy, and postmodern skepticism.

Elmer Kennedy-Andrews is Professor of English at the University of Ulster at Coleraine. In addition to his many contributions to journals and edited volumes, he is the author of Writing Home: Poetry and Place in Northern Ireland (2008), (De-)constructing the North: Fiction and the Northern Ireland Troubles (2003), and editor of volumes of essays on Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Derek Mahon and Paul Muldoon.