Dark Age

Harpur James

James Harpur's fourth collection includes intimate responses to love, birth and death, and explores faith and vision in searching and unsentimental terms. His powerful poetry gives a new perspective on the travels and travails of early Irish saints and on the Syrian pillar hermit St Symeon Stylites. In these and other poems – about the Book of Kells, a monk and his "star-timetable", and translations from Boethius – Harpur's lyric gift finds moments of illumination and grace in the ordinary as well as the miraculous.

About the Author

James Harpur has had five poetry collections published by Anvil Press and won many awards and bursaries. His latest book, "Angels and Harvesters" (2012), was a PBS Recommendation and shortlisted for the 2013 Irish Times Poetry Now Award; "The Dark Age" (2007) won the Michael Hartnett Award; "Oracle Bones" (2001) was a Tablet Book of the Year; "The Monk's Dream" (1996) includes the sonnet sequence that won the 1995 National Poetry Competition; and "A Vision of Comets" (1993) was based on the poems that won him an Eric Gregory Award. Anvil have also published his "Fortune's Prisoner" (2007), a translation of the poems of the Roman philosopher Boethius. He is poetry editor of the Temenos Academy Review and a member of Aosdana. He lives in West Cork.

Reviews

Awards won by James Harpur
Winner, 2009 Michael Hartnett Annual Poetry Award (The Dark Age)
Commended, 2012 Poetry Book Society (PBS): Choice – Summer (Angels and Harvesters)

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