{"product_id":"plenitude-9781800174108","title":"Plenitude","description":"\u003cp\u003eFollowing upon \u003ci\u003ePandemonium\u003c\/i\u003e (2016) and \u003ci\u003eProphecy\u003c\/i\u003e (2019), \u003ci\u003ePlenitude\u003c\/i\u003e marks a moment of completion and buoyant plenty in a very real and contemporary Irish world. Enriched at all times by a sense of history - the precise histories of heritage gardens, of novelists such as Molly Keane and Waterford neighbours who had gone to the Great War - his is a poetry of both brief formal lyric and longer historical meditation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA working gardener since early childhood, his thoughts return constantly to images of seasonal change within humanised landscapes, to flowers, trees and changing seasons. The plenitude of the present moment in Ireland, its unexpected prosperity, is constantly prised open to reveal painful childhood memories and stressful political meditations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith McCarthy, the past, and the past remembered, is never far from the surface of the poems, and \u003ci\u003ePlenitude\u003c\/i\u003e contains many such illuminated moments, whether the poet is walking in the great Fota House gardens or pausing at a winter cafe in New York's Upper Westside.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThomas McCarthy\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, in 1954 where he was educated at the local Convent of Mercy and subsequently at University College Cork. He worked for many years at Cork City Libraries before retiring to write full-time in 2014. He was a Fellow of the International Writing Program, University of Iowa in 1978- 79 and International Professor of English at Macalester College, Minnesota, in 1994- 95. He is a member of Aosdá na, the Irish Assembly of artists and writers. He has won several awards for his poetry, including The Patrick Kavanagh Award, the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize, the O' Shaughnessy Prize and the Ireland Funds \u003ci\u003eAnnual Literary Award\u003c\/i\u003e. His first collection, \u003ci\u003eThe First Convention\u003c\/i\u003e, was published by The Dolmen Press, Dublin, in 1978 and his most recent collections, \u003ci\u003ePandemonium\u003c\/i\u003e (2016), and \u003ci\u003eProphecy\u003c\/i\u003e (2019), were published by Carcanet Press. A former Editor of \u003ci\u003ePoetry Ireland Review\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Cork Review\u003c\/i\u003e, his journals, \u003ci\u003eMemory, Poetry and the Party\u003c\/i\u003e, were published by The Gallery Press in 2022 and his essays, \u003ci\u003eQuestioning Ireland\u003c\/i\u003e, appeared in 1924. He lives in Cork with his wife, the photographer and heritage gardener Catherine Coakley, and they have two adult children, Kate Inez and Neil.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Carcanet Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51734845030674,"sku":"9781800174108","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_835648be-146b-4583-9814-780507c23ef7.jpg?v=1763489618","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/plenitude-9781800174108","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}