Author: MJohnston

Maria Johnston studied English Literature and Music at Trinity College, Dublin and is now a doctoral student in the English Department there. Her reviews have appeared in Metre and Poetry Ireland. Forthcoming essays will appear ‘After Thirty Falls’: New Essays on John Berryman, edited by Philip Coleman and Philip McGowan (Rodopi, 2007) and "Continuings": A Celebration of the Life and Work of Brian Coffey (Irish Academic Press, 2007).
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Re-Collecting MacNeice

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Collected Poems of Louis MacNeice edited by Peter McDonald. Faber and Faber, 2007. 836 pages.

As Reviewed By: Maria Johnston

In a note on Louis MacNeice’s poetry penned in 1964, Louise Bogan observed that, “the Collected Poems 1925-1948 should, although not so arranged, be read in chronological order, for it is an added pleasure to watch the opening out of a true lyric gift, and of one so clearly illustrative of the subtle shifts and adjustments that have occurred within English poetic tradition during this century.”… continue reading...

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This is the Life of the Mind

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As Reviewed By: Maria Johnston

The Sea Cabinet by Caitríona O’ Reilly. Bloodaxe, £7.95, 61 pp.

I am rereading Moby Dick in preparation for the exam deluge tomorrow-am whelmed and wondrous at the swimming Biblical & craggy Shakespearean cadences, the rich & lustrous & fragrant recreation of spermaceti, ambergris-miracle, marvel, the ton-thunderous leviathan.

… continue reading...