“From this time on, Montague’s voice will always be raised in the ranks of the great poets of our literature. Steadily, slowly with a meticulousness and integrity that astonishes, he has made a body of poems that will outlast time if any poetry can.” —Malahat Review
“A great talent.” —London Review of Books
“John Montague’s stories have earned a place alongside the work of other esteemed Irish storytellers —Frank O’Connor, Mary Lavin, Sean O’Faolain
“The tales offer a wonderfully crafted mix of lyrical language, irony, and whimsicality, but are grounded in a sure sense of reality. They have the aura of permanence about them.” —William Kennedy
John Montague, of Irish descent, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929. He has published a substantial body of poetry as well as two collections of short stories, an autobiographical novella and a book of memoirs. Since the early 1970s Cork has been his home, and has become one of the major Irish poets of the 20th Century, continuing to write and publish while into his seventies. The American critic Harold Bloom has Montague in his selection for what he considers The Canon. Montague’s American instincts provide, along with Thomas Kinsella, an important counterweight to the more British influences of other major poets from Northern Ireland such as Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon.