James Simmons

The Company of Children James Simmons

"The enfant terrible of Irish poetry is still at large, still eternally young at heart. Irish high-priest prestigious, joyous celebrant of sex, his mature voice has acquired neither cynicism nor guile. The searing honesty of his poems on marital break-up, for instance, established a stylistic bench mark by which all others on this theme must be measured. His present strength as a poet stems from the breadth of stylistic forms he manipulates with ease: classical and romantic measure, the popular ballad, cabaret forms and the sung lyric. A sometime jarrer of the nerves of critics, he very early made for a marriage of form and colloquialism. One of the most technically accomplished of Irish poets, he is now at the threshold of his greatest work.' John Ennis in POETRY IRELAND