Reading the Ground

In this comprehensive study of Thomas Kinsella's poetry, Brian John explores the poet's development within both the Irish and the English contexts and defines the nature of his poetic achievement. He also offers a new reading of Kinsella's evolving relationship to one of his major literary forebears, W. B. Yeats. What becomes clear is the formidable accomplishment of a poet, now writing at the height of his powers, whose substantial body of work warrants comparison with the grand masters of twentieth-century literature in English - with Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett