The concept of place forms a significant part of the cultural matrix of Northern Ireland with its multifarious divisions and fault lines. Interrogating place, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley and John Montague explore the potential of the concept as a motif through which poetry negotiates the experience of being placed or displaced, of retreat and return, of belonging and wishing to belong, of facing and crossing borders. Reflections on place in the oeuvres of the four poets ultimately prompt the reconsideration of questions that underlie the complex and at once evasive sense of identity that results from the set of geographical and historical markers that define Northern Ireland.

This book is included in DOAB.