Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill

New and Selected Poems

Deane John F.

John F. Deane is a vital and generous presence in Irish poetry. New and "Selected Poems" gathers work from Deane's five previous Carcanet collections, alongside a new sequence, "Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill". Written with an inquiring intelligence, these poems of a dozen years meditate on the relevance of Christian spirituality to our troubled times.

Each of the twelve poems in the title sequence presents a movement of the spirit, from the author's childhood in the west of Ireland, through the death of a wife, to the birth of a grandchild. Arranged in the manner of an orchestral symphony, each section takes its cue from a different piece of music, from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to Mozart's "Laudate Dominum". The sequence traces, phase by phase, the development of a Christian life. Faith, in its broadest sense, is inflected by imagination.

About the Author

John F. Deane was born on Achill Island in 1943. He founded Poetry Ireland – the National Poetry Society – and "The Poetry Ireland Review" in 1978, and is the founder of The Dedalus Press, of which he was editor from 1985 until 2006. In 2008 he was visiting scholar in the Burns Library of Boston College. John F. Deane's poetry has been translated and published in France, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Italy, Slovakia, Sweden and other countries. His poems in Italian won the 2002 Premio Internazionale di Poesia Citta di Marineo. His fiction has been published by Blackstaff Press in Befast; his most recent novel "Where No Storms Come" was published by Blackstaff in 2011. He is the recipient of the O'Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry and the Marten Toonder Award for Literature. John F. Deane is a member of Aosdana, the body established by the Arts Council to honour artists "whose work had made an outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland". His poetry has been shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 1996 Deane was elected Secretary-General of the European Academy of Poetry. In 2007 he was made Chevalier en l'ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government. He is currently the editor of Poetry Ireland Review.

Reviews

"Deane is a true poet. I have not space here to do him justice" – Helena Nelson, Ambit

"Deane is an exemplary poet" – Gerard Smyth, Warwick Review

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