COLLECTED POEMS

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Limited edition, one of 15 copies. Inscribed association copy. Signed by the illustrator. Hardcover issue. Publisher's original black cloth and cream marbled paper covered boards, ruled in gilt, and with gilt titles to the spine, in matching slipcase. With black and white portrait of Michael Hartnett by John Shinnor. A very near fine copy, the binding square and firm, with one small mark to the spine and a very small loose thread to the lower board. The contents are clean throughout, and without previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. Housed in the fine, structurally sound slipcase. A lovely example.

Issued in an edition of 110 copies, form which this example is numbered XII of the first 15 copies that are reserved for the publisher and poet's estate. Signed by John Shinnor in black ink underneath his portrait of Michael Hartnett. The first edition was published in simultaneous paperback and hardback editions, on 18 September 2001. A loving tribute to Hartnett's forty year-long poetry career, this collection includes 'Poems 1958-1970', 'Secular Prayers'(1967), 'Anatomy of a Cliché' (1968), 'Thirteen Sonnets' (1968), 'Notes on My Contemporaries' (1969), 'Maiden Street' (1967), 'Prisoners' (1968), 'The Retreat of Ita Cagney' (1975), 'Inchicore Haiku' (1985), 'New Poems' (1990-1999), and a selection of poems taken from 'A Farewell to English' (1975), 'Poems to Younger Women' (1988), 'The Killing of Dreams' (1992), and 'Selected and New Poems' (1994). The poems are printed in this volume without any indication of publishing history or provenance (the contents, however, are given in roughly chronological order). A former poetry editor of The Irish Times, Hartnett was a member of Aosdána, the Affiliation of Creative Artists in Ireland, and a recipient of numerous literary and poetry awards during his lifetime, including the Irish Poetry Prize (1980), a Poetry Ireland Choice (1987), and awards from the Irish American Cultural Institute (1986, 1988) and the American Ireland Literary Fund Award (1975, 1980, and 1990). Michael Hartnett sadly passed away on 13th October 1999, at the age of 58. The Éigse Michael Hartnett, a poetry festival established in 2000, is held annually in Newcastle West, County Limerick, in his honour (Poetry Foundation, 2025).