Ciaran Carson s Selected Poems representswhile yet in full currentthe early prodigious poetic creativity of one of Ireland s great writers. This selection gathers poems from The New Estate (1976), The Irish for No (1987), Belfast Confetti (1989), First Language (1993), Opera Et Cetera (1996), The Alexandrine Plan (1998), and The Twelfth of Never (1998), all published in North America by Wake Forest University Press. In their play, these books plumb and delve so deeply that they touch and transform philosophical, political, and religious ideas. As the English poet Glyn has said, Time and again, Carson refracts the barren and weary images of Northern Ireland, the graffiti, troops and peace wall, into the infinite possibilities of the Otherwise. "