Kevin Ireland has had 17 volumes of poetry published, six novels and five books of non-fiction. From the days when he was Sargeson's paper-boy, he has learned much from the great mentor.
BOOKS
Fourteen Reasons for Writing
Fourteen Reasons for Writing is Kevin Ireland’s fourteenth book of poems, but the poem that gives this new book its name is a fourteen-line poem that at first glance looks like a sonnet. Its fourteen reasons for writing are also not quite what they seem. They appear to confront and attest, then their pretences are stripped away. Ireland’s poems are often like this: though sharp, provocative and precise, they hint at doubts, shadows and subversions. They are sharp yet allusive, urbane yet sensuous, subtle yet witty.
Walking the Land
Walking the Land is Kevin Ireland’s fifteenth book of poetry, a collection of forty poems, some of which have appeared in the Listener, Spinning a Line and Christine Cole Catley – Her First Eighty Years. Through his poetry Kevin Ireland reflects on nature, the passing of time, politics, love, life, friends, family, and even the writing of poems.
Kevin Ireland’s poems have been described as “distinguished by a cheerful scepticism and a zany take on normality”. This collection is no exception.
Getting Away With It
‘I know your dirty little secrets, Professor Motte.’
A placid and secure retirement seems certain for Kendill Motte, distinguished Professor of History at Arch Hill University – until an anonymous late-night phone call triggers a series of events that compels him to write a confession of his violent and ruthless rise from obscurity.
Kevin Ireland’s fourth novel is a shrewd, searching and unpredictable romantic comedy about the absurdities we create when we try to tell the truth about our lives. As Motte says, “Whatever the evidence, the truth lies.”
How to Catch a Fish
It is a worthy addition to the lexicon of great fishing books, from Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler to Mark Kurlansky's Cod and Thomas McGuane's The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing.
Since getting hooked on fishing as a boy, Ireland has punted on wild Irish lakes, clambered over medieval monasteries, looking in drains in order to find out how the monks went fishing, trawled through old texts to discover the origins of the word angle, chewed the fat with other devotees, and spent thousands of hours actually fishing.
He has fished in five countries and witnessed (at last count) 15 methods of trying to land the big one, though he confines himself strictly to rod, reel and a floating line. He dispels the myth that fishing is always for the table: as concerns for the fish population increase, and our knowledge and respect for the environment grows, fish are often landed, admired and then returned to where they are allowed to swim away. Thus the fishing experience has changed and indeed been heightened - the angler feels both physically advantaged and spiritually enlarged (and the fish no doubt relieved).
How to Catch a Fish is packed with glorious fishing stories that will have you laughing out loud, but Ireland also gives advice on how to get started and, on a serious note, warns of the effects of over-fishing, which threatens oceans and rivers. He also argues for the right of access for everyone through open land to river courses.
Airports and other wasted days
Kevin Ireland’s sixteenth book of poems takes a wry, comic-serious look at the glorious ways we fritter away our days. It opens with reflections on airports – those necessary yet infuriating hijackers of our time and patience – then returns home again to puzzle at, satirise and celebrate the intricate and devious manner in which we fill our minds, hopes and activities with rich delays, breathless foolishness and gorgeous squanderings. As Ireland puts it:
From the first moment
of forgetfulness to the final
going down of whatever it was,
there’s nothing but talk and wine
and books and food. Life is enriched
by indolence. I think of things
not done as buried treasure.