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Chris Arthur, Irish Nocturnes
A PenMark Press Book
In this illustrated collection
of eighteen essays the award winning poet and essayist, Chris
Arthur, blends the intensely personal with the abstractly
philosophical. His writing has been compared favorably with figures
as diverse as Hubert Butler, Seamus Heaney, Joseph Campbell, C.S.
Lewis and V.S. Naipaul. The lyrical writing contained in
Irish Nocturnes
provides the reader entrée into the author’s views of life, the ways
we live it, the meanings we can find in it, and, in each nocturne,
the author’s plea for a shared, thoughtful, peaceful understanding.
Click on feather to read a representative essay. (Requires Adobe
Acrobat Reader™)
Contents
Of Eels, Ulstermen
and Dogs’ Tails
Linen
Ferrule
An Image for Belfast
In the Dark
Substitute
Psychometry
Ne Obliviscaris
Kingfishers
Invasions
Meditation on the
Pelvis of an Unknown Animal
The Empty Heart
The Last Corncrake
Under Siege
Herdings
Facing the Family
A Paper Star for
Brookfield
Walking Meditation
Going Home
Critical acclaim for
Chris Arthur’s
Irish Nocturnes
:
“True to the spirit
of John Field’s subtly expressive musical compositions, the essays
gathered in
Irish Nocturnes
are the work not of a dreamer or a sleepwalker but of an utterly
alert individual intent on translating into lyrical prose the
wonders and the mysteries of his world.”
Thomas O’Grady,
The Boston Irish Reporter
“[S]heer pleasure, a swim through the waters of consciousness of a
man clearly fluent and knowledgeable in the essay form, full of
information and opinion, fact and personal observation, a book that
rewards
in
many ways,
virtually in every sentence.”
Thomas E. Kennedy,
The Literary Review
“With the eye of a
poet and the sensibilities of a naturalist, Arthur captures his
readers’ attention easily and fully. [He] resembles both Loren
Eiseley and fellow Ulsterman Seamus Heaney, two writers who
brilliantly illustrate the physical and metaphysical connections
between the animal and human worlds and map that connection on small
and immediate as well as macrocosmic scales through time...reading
Arthur’s prose is an immensely enjoyable and informative
experience.”
Kimberly R. Myers,
Nua: Studies in Contemporary
Irish Writing
“One of the ways of
describing what Arthur’s essays amount to is to think of them as a
quest for a spiritual ecology, a view inevitably reinforced by their
references to Eastern religion...One thing is certain. Nobody from
the Protestant community in Northern Ireland has spoken before as
this book speaks.”
George O’Brien,
Prairie Schooner
“Irish
Nocturnes
contains eighteen essays which range in subject matter from the
Siege of Derry to Buddhist philosophy, from owls and kingfishers to
fear of the dark, from sheepdogs to how we acquire language, from
learning things by heart to coping with a sense of exile, from the
origin of life to making linen, from bits of bone to Japanese
bells. Underlying this diversity is a common origin.”
Local Literature:
www.local.ie/arts_and_culture/literature/
A
“thought-provoking...immensely readable and rewarding collection” of
essays each of which “represents a lyrical interpretation of a facet
of the Belfast-born author’s life through his childhood to his work
as a nature warden and his experiences as an emigrant.”
Pauline Ferrie
, The Irish Emigrant Book Review
“There are eighteen
essays here, an almost overwhelming gift, each a jewel in itself.
[Chris Arthur] writes with simple grace and a poet’s instinct for
the right and necessary metaphor...I will take time over my reading
and go back a second and, no doubt, a third time. I am certain that
more precious metal is to be got from such a rich ore.”
William Wall
, Local Literature
“The luminous
opening essay [of
Irish Nocturnes],
on Irish linen, engages in an extended meditation on how we might
pull each thread and move back in history, evoking Aldo Leopold’s
account of a log going through a sawmill in A Sand County Almanac.”
James S. Rogers,
New Hibernia Review
“Arthur
breathes new life into the genre of Irish History, while at the same
time breaking free from the boundaries of genre
altogether...creating a book that is breathtaking in its
originality...Arthur maps out Ireland from his own personal
perspective and encourages the reader to do the same. Entertaining,
emotive and deeply moving, Irish Nocturnes will make you
question your own views of the past, present and future. A book not
to be missed.”
Ruth McNerlan,
The Black Mountain Review
Author
Chris Arthur was
born in Belfast and lived for many years in County Antrim. He
worked as warden on a nature reserve on the shores of Lough Neagh
before enrolling at the University of Edinburgh where he took a
First Class Honours degree followed by a Ph.D. He has been widely
published as an essayist and poet on both sides of the Atlantic. His
work has appeared in The American Scholar, The Antigonish
Review, The Centennial Review, Contemporary Review, Dalhousie
Review, Descant, Event, The Honest Ulsterman, The North American
Review, Northwest Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Southern
Review, The Threepenny Review, The Wascana Review and
others.
Chris Arthur was
Gifford Fellow at the University of St. Andrews and is a winner of
the Akegarasu Haya International Essay Prize, the Beverly Hayne
Memorial Award for Young Writers, and the Theodore Christian
Hoepfner Award. He teaches at the University of Wales, Lampeter.
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