In his foreword to this book, Derek Mahon notes that P. J. Kavanagh's poems "elude the obvious categories. He has never been one of a "school"'. A poet of rural England, yet of Irish ancestry, Kavanagh "has always stood slightly apart". He championed...

P. J. Kavanagh's poems are filled with praise, with the minute observations that transform a mood, or the dazzling recollection that can change the heart. "If description is revelation", wrote Derek Mahon in the Irish Times, "his revelatory gift is p...