Poetry and Peace – Michael Longley, Seamus Heaney, and Northern Ireland

“Richard Rankin Russell’s Poetry and Peace represents the best of the second wave of Heaney criticism and the rising tide of Longley criticism. . . . As a result of his far-reaching and adept research, insightful and informed analysis, and progressive thesis, Russell’s work is more than an excellent introduction to Longley’s poetry; it marks a new day in Longley studies. Sharing the beautifully illustrated and finely produced cover of Poetry and Peace with Seamus Heaney brings a well-deserved, but long-in-coming, recognition to Longley's work on and off the page. There is a clarity of purpose and coolness of execution that makes Poetry and Peace a very convincing book, a very approachable book, and a very important book. . . ." —James Joyce Literary Supplement

“Russell’s book is valuable in giving full attention to the work of Michael Longley, a poet of great range and variety who has been unjustly overlooked in some quarters. The book is additionally valuable in the way it takes poetry out of the ontologically abstract place it is assigned to by most literary criticism.” —The New Criterion