Snow Falling on Chestnut Hill: New and Selected Poems

Featuring the best poems of one of Ireland’s most popular modern poets, this new work explores John F. Deane’s perennial themes of love—both religious and human. The title sequence traces the development of a Christian life, beginning with expectation and birth and proceeding through youth, experience, death, and rebirth. Each of the collection's 12 poems presents a movement of the spirit, from the author’s childhood in the west of Ireland, through the death of a wife, to the birth of a grandchild in Holland. Arranged in the manner of an orchestral symphony, each section focuses on a different piece of music, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to Mozart's Laudate Dominum. The new poems are accompanied by pieces from Deane’s earlier work, selected and edited by Irish poetry scholar, Thomas Dillon Redshaw.