PROPHETSTOWN by Ciarán O'Rourke
THE IRISH PAGES PRESS
Finely crafted and ethically charged, Ciarán O'Rourke's third collection of poetry, Prophetstown, blends lyric power and searching sensitivity in its examination of the conflicts and contradictions of twenty-first-century civilization. O'Rourke casts an unflinching eye over the devastations of recent history, even as he celebrates the capacities and solaces of the poetic vocation itself. The result is a humane and radically engaged mode of eco-poetic thinking, attuned to the systems of power that dominate our world, as well as the manifold forms of resistance and response of which human beings are capable. Imaginatively resurrecting the voices of a number of exemplary historical figures ' from Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) to Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) and Kathleen Lynn (1874-1955) ' Prophetstown combines a creatively galvanizing understanding of past struggles for emancipation and equality with a discerning, clear-sighted perception of present- day social concerns. As such, the collection also features resonant and timely responses to the work of Sadako Kurihara (1913-2005), poet and peace campaigner, and Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975), writer and film-maker, among others. Prophetstown chronicles the resilience and power of the human spirit in dark times. ~ Ciarán O'Rourke was born in 1991 and took a degree in English and History at Trinity College, Dublin. He received a Masters in English and American Studies from Oxford in 2014, as well as a doctorate on William Carlos Williams at his alma mater in Dublin in 2019. His first published collection, The Buried Breath, was published by The Irish Pages Press in 2018 and highly commended by the Forward Foundation for Poetry the following year. His second collection, Phantom Gang (2022), was also published by The Irish Pages Press and was shortlisted for the highly prestigious Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, an annual global award for writers under 40 for the best published work in English in any creative genre. He currently lives in Dublin. "These are world poems, in the good sense. They make place seem unimportant, while evoking it as a necessary backdrop to what happens always and everywhere. The result is a dark universality that speaks for itself, shot through with moments of redemption..."� Harry Clifton "A radical humanitarian poet, Ciarán O'Rourke exposes the futility of bloodshed with fierceness and unwavering empathy. His precise, surgical mind dissects global injustices, giving voice to the oppressed with dignity and unflinching resolve. Prophetstown is as much an appeal to conscience as it is an exceptional literary achievement."� Molly Twomey `
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