Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill: New and Selected Poems

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Featuring the best poems of one of Ireland's most popular modern poets, this new work explores John F. Deane's perennial themes of love--both religious and human. The title sequence traces the development of a Christian life, beginning with expectation and birth and proceeding through youth, experience, death, and rebirth. Each of the collection's 12 poems presents a movement of the spirit, from the author's childhood in the west of Ireland, through the death of a wife, to the birth of a grandchild in Holland. Arranged in the manner of an orchestral symphony, each section focuses on a different piece of music, from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to Mozart's Laudate Dominum . The new poems are accompanied by pieces from Deane's earlier work, selected and edited by Irish poetry scholar, Thomas Dillon Redshaw.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Selected Poems
• from Toccata and Fugue (2000)
• In Dedication (p. 5)
• Penance (p. 6)
• Winter in Meath (p. 7)
• Ghost (p. 10)
• Artist (p. 11)
• Christ with Urban Fox (p. 12)
• The Fox-God (p. 14)
• The Taking of the Lambs (p. 15)
• Fugue (p. 16)
• from Manhandling the Deity (2003)
• Officium (p. 33)
• Frenzy (p. 34)
• Nightwatch (p. 35)
• Matrix (p. 36)
• The Book of Love (p. 37)
• House Martins (p. 38)
• Acolyte (p. 39)
• Fantasy in White (p. 41)
• The Apotheosis of Desire (p. 42)
• Canticle (p. 47)
• from The Instruments of Art (2005)
• Late October Evening (p. 51)
• The Gift (p. 52)
• The Meadows of Asphodel (p. 53)
• Adagio Molto (p. 54)
• The Instruments of Art (p. 55)
• The Study (p. 60)
• You (p. 61)
• Carnival of the Animals (p. 62)
• Report from a Far Place (p. 64)
• The Red Gate (p. 65)
• The Chaplet (p. 66)
• from A Little Book of Hours (2008)
• To Market, to Market (p. 69)
• Call Me Beautiful (p. 70)
• Towards a Conversion (p. 71)
• Harbour, Achill Island (p. 72)
• Mapping the Sky (p. 73)
• The Poem of the Goldfinch (p. 74)
• Kane's Lane (p. 75)
• Stranger (p. 76)
• Madonna and Child (p. 78)
• Triduum (p. 91)
• from Eye of the Hare (2011)
• Travelling Man (p. 95)
• Shelf Life (p. 97)
• The Marble Rail (p. 98)
• On the Edge (p. 99)
• Eye of the Hare (p. 101)
• Cedar (p. 102)
• Abundance (p. 103)
• The Colours (p. 104)
• The Colliery (p. 105)
• Words of the Unknown Soldier (p. 106)
• Shoemaker (p. 107)
• Sheets (p. 109)
• Bikes (p. 110)
• Ever This Night (p. 111)
• Footfalls (p. 112)
• Midsummer Poem (p. 113)
• Mimizan Plage (p. 114)
• Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill (2012)
• Overture (p. 117)
• Traveller (p. 120)
• Who have Business with the Sea (p. 124)
• Bead after Bead (p. 128)
• Writing out the Myth (p. 133)
• Pastoral Symphony (p. 139)
• As Breath against the Windowpane (p. 141)
• Night on Skellig Michael (p. 145)
• Mother and Child (p. 148)
• An Eldering Congregation (p. 153)
• Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill (p. 158)
• Coda (p. 162)