
Herne the Hunter
Peter McDonald(Author)
Carcanet Press Ltd
Published on 25. February 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
77 pages
978-1-78410-172-5 (ISBN)
Description
Herne the Hunter is the sixth collection from one of Ireland's most accomplished lyric poets. In this new body of work, Peter McDonald deepens his interest in myth and storytelling through the legend of Herne, a phantom huntsman of English folklore. In McDonald's poetic treatment of the legend, opposing forces are held in tension: body and soul, present and past, possession and desire, death and life. The collection's two-part structure causes the poems to reflect and distort in a version of what Yeats called 'a troubled mirror': a sequence of Petrarchan sonnets is set against a Shakespearean sonnet sequence; stanzaic poems, shorter pieces, and longer compositions also meet their own images across the book, resulting in a complex symmetry of forms. Subjects in these poems stretch from game animals to Japanese swords, and from tree-catalogues to the constellations. The volume draws energy from struggles between irreconcilable imperatives, especially the need for pursuit and the desperation for escape, and the intimacy between the hunter and the hunted.McDonald's Herne - not quite man, nor spirit, nor beast - opens up a world in which time is felt 'passing through blood', in which one might listen to 'the cries of stones', where 'the weather is the news, and like the news / it has no meaning'.
Reviews / Votes
'McDonald's work 'is entirely in keeping with Milton's enjoinder that poetry be "simple, sensuous and passionate". His musicality is not just rich but endlessly varied and subtle. [...] It embodies the values of accuracy, conscience, and restraint but with no skimping of intensity or ferocity.' - David Wheatley, Irish Times; 'McDonald is often impressively adept at using varied metres for cadence, musicality, tension. He resists the over-dramatic, but is a poet of fierce feeling - moved and often moving.' - TLSMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
159 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78410-172-5 (9781784101725)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Peter McDonald was born and grew up in Belfast. A University teacher, he is currently Christopher Tower Student and Tutor in Poetry in the English Language at Christ Church, Oxford. A prominent critic of modern and contemporary poetry, he has published a book on Louis MacNeice, a study of Northern Irish poetry entitled Mistaken Identities, and, most recently, Serious Poetry: Form and Authority from Yeats to Hill. He has edited MacNeice's Selected Plays, and is also the editor of the forthcoming new edition of MacNeice's Collected Poems.