Our book of the week is our Winter Recommendation: Jonah and Me by John F. Deane.
"I see the poet standing like a prophet between the actual and the transcendent, listening, hearing the music of creation, at times its cacophony, at times its symphony, and translating that listening into the music and urgency of words."
— John F. Deane, Poetry Book Society Winter Bulletin 2025
John F. Deane’s new book follows the publication of his career-spanning Selected and New Poems, which was published on the occasion of his eightieth birthday in 2023 and shows no relaxation in his descriptive and lyric powers.
The poems in Jonah and Me bear witness to a number of different Irelands, and one memorable sequence tracks a family heirloom, a carriage clock, through three different marriages in 1897, 1906 and 1940. Alive to what is comical and even enchanting, his steadfast faith is as well captured in his grip on a childhood memory of Jonah, his ‘Bunnacurry mule, big and raw, / stubborn in hardship and unwilling’, with whom he is partnered in what the poem calls a ‘slow, uncomely, cosmic dance’.
Order Jonah and Me here, and get 25% off when you use your PBS membership discount code.