POETRY BOOK SOCIETY SPECIAL COMMENDATION
Dennis O'Driscoll is among the finest and most popular poets of his generation. `New and Selected Poems' shows him to be a poet of humanity and wit whose observant, rhythmically supple poetry is attuned to the tragedies and comedies of contemporary life. One of the book's highlights is The Bottom Line, a multi-voiced and multifaceted portrait of business managers and bureaucrats.
Closing with a generous selection of previously unpublished work, `New and Selected Poems' - which follows Dennis O'Driscoll's acclaimed `Exemplary Damages', chosen as a Book of the Year by Seamus Heaney in 2002 - makes for a compelling collection, wide in its appeal and yet imbued with a distinctive and often startling world-view.
Born in Thurles, County Tipperary in 1954, Dennis O'Driscoll has published six collections of poetry and a selection of his essays and reviews, `Troubled Thoughts, Majestic Dreams' (Gallery Press). He received a Lannan Literary Award in 1999, the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2005 and the O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry in 2006. A civil servant since the age of 16, he works for Irish Customs in Dublin.
