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| Dr Philip Coleman |
Kevin has published four collections of poetry with Salmon, The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), Frightening New Furniture (2010), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), and his best-selling first collection, The Boy With No Face (2005), which was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish poet. His poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry and features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed. Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed. Neil Astley, Bloodaxe, April 2014). A collection of Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2012 and 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in early 2016. The Stinging Fly magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most read living poet in Ireland.”
Song of Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems is published by Salmon and includes a substantial number of new poems as well as selections from his six previous poetry collections, poems written between 1996 and 2017.
Praise for Kevin Higgins’s poetry:
“Ireland’s accomplished political poet and satirist Kevin Higgins”,
Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Times
“I read this twice. Now, will make a coffee
and read it again.”
Gene Kerrigan of The Sunday Independent
“The satirist trades balance for excess,
overstatement and savagery, uncovering the hidden dissonances of the social
process. Prominent among the younger poets to have set themselves this
challenge is Kevin Higgins…Satire is a form of war by other means, and…Higgins
shows himself an enthusiastic (verbal) combatant”. David Wheatley
“Likely
the mostly widely read living poet in Ireland”,
The Stinging Fly magazine
“As nasty a man as he is poor as a 'poet'”
John McTernan, former advisor to Tony
Blair
“good satirical savagery”. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish
Poetry, 1800-2000
“Higgins picks apart the human condition, its
disappointments and indulgences, with vigour and acumen.” Roddy Lumsden
“His contribution to the development of Irish
satire is indisputable…Higgins’ poems embody all of the cunning and deviousness
of language as it has been manipulated by his many targets... it is clear that
Kevin Higgins’ voice and the force of his poetic project are gaining in confidence
and authority with each new collection.” Philip Coleman
“With backstage guardians in Paul Durcan (see
his titles) and Patrick Kavanagh, Kevin Higgins's work has a buoyant spoken
immediacy (often taking the form of dramatic monologues), his poems springing
out of colloquial address and celebrating the ordinary through a use of
quotidian bric-a-brac, which he often pits - with positive effect - against
larger (but no more important) forces…Comedy is part of his poetics, and what I
especially like in his work is its swiftness of wit, its tone of buoyant
contrarianism and jubilant disappointment”, Eamon Grennan, The Irish Times
“It is a profound compliment to the quality
of Kevin’s writing that you can disagree with the content and yet find yourself
still reading on and appreciating the style. You’d have to say that he is one
of the lead poets of his generation in Ireland at this stage.” Clare Daly T.D.
“Gil
Scott Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised as re-told by Victor Meldrew”.
Phil Brown, Eyewear
“Fluent and often as laugh-out-loud funny as
Paul Howard's Ross O'Carroll-Kelly”, John
McAuliffe, The Irish Times
“Higgins is a genius, because he does
something only great poets do: he writes with a voice that is entirely his own,
in a style he has invented, about themes and concerns that now are instantly
recognisable as his terrain.” Todd
Swift
“Ireland's
sharpest satirist my arse.”
Fergus Finlay
“Ireland's
best political poet” Mike Jenkins
former editor of Poetry Wales
“brilliant
satire” Peter Tatchell
“Kevin Higgins writes political poetry of the
highest order, telling truth to power with Swiftian savagery and satirical
humour, dissecting and denouncing political doublespeak, pretension and
hypocrisy.” Mike Quille, Culture
Matters
