Poetry
Collections, Selections & Collaborations
The poet Paul Hyland, according to Michael Farley, “never has written much like anyone else.” He is strongly aware of his heritage and his contemporaries, but his work, in the books below, demonstrates a firm grip on both his own vision and his own language: in Stan Smith’s words, “strong, stubborn nouns and verbs of human labour and natural energy in a toughly kinetic context”.
Art of the Impossible
New & Selected Poems 1974-2004
“Few recent collections will give such pleasure.” Brian Morton, PN Review
“Hyland’s range is wide and impressive; his perceptiveness deep and genuine.” IP inc
“A gift for telling narrative and description. The quality remains consistently fine.” Matt Simpson, Orbis
“Paul Hyland is the quintessential poet of place.” Seán Street, South
Kicking Sawdust
“Highly individual…brilliantly conceived and expressed.” Anne Born, Tears in the Fence
“Joyce and Wilde might have recognised that balance of chaos and equilibrium; we should take pleasure in it too.” Alan Riach, Lines Review
“A delicate exploration… funny and moving.” The North
“One is entered and altered by these poems.” PQR
Getting into Poetry
A Readers' & Writers' Guide to the Poetry Scene
“Essential reading…the guide to the contemporary poetry scene.” Suzi Feay, Time Out
“Just about as comprehensive as you can get on the subject of breaking into the poetry world.” Poetry London
“Excellent…entertaining and demystifying advice to any would-be poet.” The Times
The Stubborn Forest
“Work of power and subtlety…a strikingly impressive achievement.” Martin Haslehurst, Anglo-Welsh Review
“Paul Hyland’s most compelling poems bear witness not only to the past’s ‘renaissance’ but also to language’s capacity for renewal.” Michael O’Neill, Poetry Review
“A forceful collection.” Stan Smith, Cencrastus
1985 The Poetry Society’s ALICE HUNT BARTLETT AWARD
Poems of Z
“An archetypal poet, for whom language constitutes a world.” Lachlan Mackinnon, Times Literary Supplement
“An inventive, morally acute imagination, obsessed by the idea of resistance to power.” Michael O’Neill, Poetry Review
“A sequence of compelling, sometimes haunting poems.” Pick of the Week, BBC Radio 4
Domingus
“Hogarthian in tone, powerful and full of clarities.” John Cassidy, Poetry Review
The first poem, “Domingus”, was the stimulus for a series of etchings by Martin Ware, which in turn provoked more poems. The whole sequence, published by Anne Stevenson’s Mid-Day Publications, inspired the composer, the late Barry Anderson, to produce an amazing electro-acoustic setting for the poems which was commissioned by BBC Radio 3.
Riddles for Jack
“There is a fluency and a confident purposefulness in his poems which command attention.” John Cassidy, Poetry Review
“Poems are seldom so incisive as this.” Anthony Brode, Southern Evening Echo
Contains many of the poems for which Paul Hyland won an ERIC GREGORY AWARD in 1977
Who’s in the Next Room?
Poems by Thomas Hardy with new writing...
Paul Hyland, Kate Scott, Catherine Simmonds and Pam Zinnemann-Hope take Thomas Hardy’s electrifying verse as their starting point. Hardy’s original lyrics are juxtaposed with their responses to his poetry, fiction and landscapes.
Performed at Max Gate, the Hardy Conference, and for Poet in the City at Kings Place, London: “One of the best poetry readings I have attended.” Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times