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As the first comprehensive study of Irish American poetry ever published, Awake in America seeks to establish a conversation between Irish and Irish American literature that challenges many of the long-accepted boundaries between the two. In this distinctive book, Daniel Tobin presents a series of essays that combine poetry and literary criticism to form what he calls the poet's essay.
The first section of Awake in America reconsiders the dual tradition of Irish poetry through discussions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century poets as well as contemporary writers. The second section features a series of shorter chapters on poets in America. The third section explores the theme of "Crossings" and includes a consideration of Irish American and African American literature. The fourth, and final, section is comprised of a compositional memoir in which Tobin explores the role of hidden history in his own long poem, "The Narrows."
Awake in America offers an innovative reading of literary tradition in light of the routes by which tradition evolves as well as the roots from which tradition originates. It will be welcomed by poetry aficionados and by all scholars and readers of Irish and Irish American literature.
". . . this book is significant in its aims to unravel the complexities of Irish, American and Irish American identity—and to trace some of the ways in which these complexities reveal themselves in verse. Tobin's vast knowledge of the field comes through particularly in his close readings, where he is able to trace lines of influence throughout Irish and American history and back again: and these open up new areas of scrutiny and investigation that will excite scholars of Irish American literature." —Irish Studies Review
Daniel Tobin is professor and interim dean of the School of Arts at Emerson College. He is the author and editor of a number of books, including The Book of Irish American Poetry: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008).