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Namanlagh by Tom Paulin
• WINNER OF THE PEN HEANEY PRIZE
• SHORTLISTED FOR THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE
• LONGLISTED FOR THE CHRISTOPHER EWART-BIGGS MEMORIAL PRIZE
"Tom Paulin is among the best of a great generation of Irish poets.'"
—Sunday Telegraph
"[Tom Paulin's] short, punchy poems are characterised by their ability to evoke images through the smallest details, or through sudden shifts of register ... Mr Paulin's poems fight against lazy uses of language ... in Love's Bonfire Mr Paulin demonstrates the strength that comes with saying less, not unlike relying on only a spark for warmth."
—The Economist
About the Book
In his first collection for more than a decade, Tom Paulin revisits themes of place, occupation, conflict and legacy, primarily in the context of his native Northern Ireland. Stories and memories, even histories, are shown to be both frail and persistent, troubling and vital. There is a powerful austerity in play as he sets aside the rhetorical force and linguistic dazzle for which he is renowned, to speak simply of later life and the losses it brings: 'if only some idea / could find its way / through enemy territory / then I'd at last begin / to look up at the sky.' As outward-looking as ever, he also includes here intimate and resonant versions from Brecht and Ronsard, and from the contemporary Palestinian poet, Walid Khazendar.
About the Author
Tom Paulin grew up in Belfast and now lives in Oxford, where he is Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College, University of Oxford. Namanlagh (Faber & Faber), his first collection in a decade, is his tenth book of poetry and was recently awarded the PEN Heaney Prize 2025, as well as being shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize 2025. Of his previous collections Walking a Line (1994), The Wind Dog (1999) and The Road to Inver (2004) were all also shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. His New Selected Poems appeared in 2014. He has published six books of critical prose on topics including Thomas Hardy and William Hazlitt, several plays and two anthologies.
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