Wake Forest University Press

Wake Forest University Press Dedicated to Irish poetry
wfupress.wfu.edu Dedicated to Irish poetry
wfupress.wfu.edu
Follow us on Twitter:

Available now: Poetry’s Abracadabra: Essays on Michael Longley, edited by Meg Tyler. Learn more and order your copy on o...
06/03/2026

Available now: Poetry’s Abracadabra: Essays on Michael Longley, edited by Meg Tyler. Learn more and order your copy on our website: https://wfupress.wfu.edu/books/poetrys-abracadabra-essays-on-michael-longley/

Poetry’s Abracadabra offers a full appraisal of Michael Longley’s poetic achievement, from his earliest work in the 1960s to the late collections published before his death in 2025. Written by leading poets and scholars of contemporary Irish poetry, this collection of ten essays reveals new insights into Longley’s thirteen collections as well as his prose, interviews, and archival material. The essays in this volume explore his drafting process and dedicatory poems, his pastoral considerations of Western Ireland and eco-poetics, his various inspirations, from Philip Larkin to American women poets, and his masterful interpretations of Virgil and Homer. Placing Longley’s career in the context of his Belfast contemporaries as well as the wider scope of contemporary poetry, this book confirms Donald Hall’s assessment of Michael Longley as one of the great poets “whose work will endure while the English language does.”

Edited by Meg Tyler. Essays by Fran Brearton, Alan Gillis, Stephen Harrison, Hugh Haughton, Maria Johnston, Peter McDonald, Richard Rankin Russell, Meg Tyler, Rosanna Warren, and David Wheatley.

Poem of the Week: “Tortoise Poem” by Leontia Flynn, from the collection Taking Liberties (2026). Read the full poem on o...
04/24/2026

Poem of the Week: “Tortoise Poem” by Leontia Flynn, from the collection Taking Liberties (2026). Read the full poem on our blog: https://wfupress.wfu.edu/poem-of-the-week/tortoise-poem-by-leontia-flynn/

With one of our favorite opening stanzas in recent years, “Tortoise Poem” by Leontia Flynn presents a terrarium as world. Whether the solitary tortoise represents the cultivation of a rich inner life or the increasing isolation caused by the contemporary digital age is up to the reader, however. At the center of the poem, we find an image that may not be immediately available to American readers, the tortoise’s “Oliver Plunkett head.” Plunkett was a 17th-century martyr and Ireland’s first canonized saint in nearly 700 years. His severed head is a religious artifact and is still on display in a Drogheda church. In the context of the poem, the head is shriveled and grotesque, but it may also be read as an image of isolation, cut off from everything else, or perhaps a means of spiritual ascension.

Thank you to the students and faculty who joined us this past Friday for the Afternoon Salon. We enjoyed hearing your wo...
04/20/2026

Thank you to the students and faculty who joined us this past Friday for the Afternoon Salon. We enjoyed hearing your work!

Poem of the Week: "A Sign" by John McAuliffe, from his latest collection, National Theatre. Read the full poem on our bl...
04/17/2026

Poem of the Week: "A Sign" by John McAuliffe, from his latest collection, National Theatre. Read the full poem on our blog: https://wfupress.wfu.edu/poem-of-the-week/a-sign-by-john-mcauliffe/

“A Sign” by Jonn McAuliffe fits well in the poetic tradition of mushrooms—Emily Dickinson and Slyvia Plath also wrote poems about them, and so have Paul Muldoon and David Wheatley. Somewhat surprisingly, however, “A Sign” begins with an un-poetic assertion, “Nothing fanciful in their welling up from the black earth.” Almost in spite of itself, the poem quickly blooms with various descriptions of “the mushrooms’ little accented cliffs,” “pencil shavings,” and the fungi are personified as “Awkward customers on the earth’s cold shoulder.” The poem becomes, in its own words, an “argument” that “brightens what springs up overnight.”

We're looking forward to Pádraig Ó Tuama's upcoming lecture, "Virtue and Verse: What Poetry Can Teach Us About Character...
04/16/2026

We're looking forward to Pádraig Ó Tuama's upcoming lecture, "Virtue and Verse: What Poetry Can Teach Us About Character," presented by The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest in partnership with Bookmarks. Join us on Monday, April 20th, at 5:30 pm in the Kulynych Auditorium, Porter Byrum Welcome Center, Wake Forest University. This event is free and open to the public. You can claim your free ticket via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtue-and-verse-what-poetry-can-teach-us-about-character-tickets-1984803776525

Dr. Pádraig Ó Tuama is an award-winning Irish poet and peacebuilder, the author of ten books and anthologies of poetry, the incoming Professor of the Practice in Spirituality at Yale University, and the host of the popular podcast, Poetry Unbound, which has over 20 million downloads. Profiled in The New Yorker, Pádraig’s poems have been featured in Poetry Ireland Review, Ploughshares, Academy of American Poets, Harvard Review, New England Review, and Kenyon Review, among others. His most recent books include Kitchen and 44 Poems on Being with Each Other. The former leader of the Corrymeela Community, Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization, Pádraig is widely noted for his deep and searching reflections on healing, peacebuilding, and reconciliation and the power of poetry to express and effect personal and social change.

We're excited to host the Wake Forest University Department of English Afternoon Salon this Friday, 4/17, from 3:30–5:00...
04/16/2026

We're excited to host the Wake Forest University Department of English Afternoon Salon this Friday, 4/17, from 3:30–5:00 pm. Students are invited to share their creative work (or works in progress). Come read, perform, listen, and enjoy!

Our office is located just off campus at 2518 Reynolda Road. Parking is available in the lot directly behind our office. Additional parking is available in the lots off of Henning Drive.

Our Poem of the Week series returns for National Poetry Month! This week's poem comes from Leontia Flynn's latest collec...
04/10/2026

Our Poem of the Week series returns for National Poetry Month! This week's poem comes from Leontia Flynn's latest collection, Taking Liberties. Read the full poem on our blog: https://wfupress.wfu.edu/poem-of-the-week/in-her-silent-cloister-by-leontia-flynn/

“In Her Silent Cloister” by Leontia Flynn imagines the 12th-Century nun, writer, and philosopher Héloïse du Paraclet. Written from Flynn’s experience as a new mother, this poem explores a common theme in the collection Taking Liberties, asking where inner lives intersect with the outer world and under what circumstances creativity may flourish, especially for women writers.

Interested in discussing some recent WFU Press titles with other readers? Look no further than Solas Nua's excellent onl...
04/09/2026

Interested in discussing some recent WFU Press titles with other readers? Look no further than Solas Nua's excellent online book club, hosted via Zoom each month. There is no membership, and everyone is free to join. Two of their upcoming discussions include:

📚April 20th, 6:30 pm: The Map of the World by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
📚June 15th, 6:30 pm: Lunulae: New & Selected Poems in Translation by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

See the full list of book club events, including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction on their website: https://www.solasnua.org/events

It's that time again! In honor of National Poetry Month, enjoy 25% off our selected and collected poetry titles when you...
04/03/2026

It's that time again! In honor of National Poetry Month, enjoy 25% off our selected and collected poetry titles when you order through our website. Eligible books are on sale now, and the discount will last through the end of April—no coupon code needed! Shop the sale on our website: https://wfupress.wfu.edu/product-category/selected-collected/

Address

2518 Reynolda Road
Winston-Salem, NC
27106

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+13367585448

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Wake Forest University Press posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Wake Forest University Press:

Shortcuts

Share

Category