The Book of Irish American Poetry From the Eighteenth Century to the Present

Editor and poet Daniel Tobin took on a mammoth task in attempting to compile the most authoritative collection of Irish-American poetry. The result is "The Book of Irish American Poetry: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present," and weighs in at nearly 800 pages. Some legitimate questions have been raised about this book. A Publisher's Weekly review, for example, wondered if the many poets gathered in this volume are Irish in any way other than their name. Another way to look at this is that along with explicitly Irish-American poetry from the likes of Billy Collins, Galway Kinnell and Paul Muldoon, you get noticeably less Irish-themed work from the likes of Marianne Moore and Tess Gallagher. Either way, this book is a must-have for lovers of Irish and Irish-American writing. ($65 / 760 pages / University of Notre Dame Press)