I stood awhile
between land and ocean and found

a small stone polished sheer by sea-breaking;
cold-white as a winter moon
it dried quickly into dullness. I kept it,

touching at times on a small heart of creation
the way perhaps a poem
can hold all of our story within its core.
                              from ‘World, Flesh and Devil’ 

Eye of the Hare affirms a spirituality for healing a shattered world. In a richly textured collection, layered with Biblical echoes and the music of the Psalms, John F. Deane explores the possibilities of poetry to redress the failures of care towards the planet and the needs of society. Deane revives the language of sacrament and celebration with raw and tender grace; in sonnets, narratives and lyrics Eye of the Hare advances towards redemption. In the book’s final section, Deane honours the places and landscapes of Achill, that beautiful, demanding island off the west coast of Ireland.

Cover Painting Tony O’ Malley, Highbourne Cay – Exumas, Bahamas (Tony, Jane, Chris and Jenny Harris, Karen and Timmy Wrinkle), 1986, acrylic on canvas. Reproduced by kind permission of Jane O’Malley.

No other contemporary Irish poet, and few Irish writers, have mastered the art of eloquent, impassioned expression as artistic statement as beautifully as John F. Deane. This is a major European writer of conscience... In gravitas, sophistication and magisterial urgency of intent, Deane looks to Kinsella and beyond him to Yeats. Irish Times

I read and re-read the music of John F. Deane: a fine poet for our lives’ divided seasons. Alison Brackenbury, Poetry Review 

Travelling Man
Public House
Shelf Life
The Marble Rail
The Tombs
On the Edge
Still Life
Bats
Eye of the Hare
Cedar
The Disappointed
Who Have Gone Before
Song of the Suffering Servant
Chewing on Stones
Lives of the Minor Poets
Abundance

Edge of the Known World
Paris
The Colours
The Colliers
The Colliery
Words of the Unknown Soldier
Down to the Shore
Sissie
Roots
Shoemaker
Almost
The Garden, Waiting
Shorewards
The Hare
Birds, Beasts and Buttercups
World, Flesh and Devil

Between Worlds
Mayo Theology
The Great Skellig
Sheets
Riddle
Weeds and Wilderness
Piano
Well-Tempered Clavier
Bikes
Ever This Night
Footfalls
Midsummer Poem
Mimizan Plage
More
Body Parts
In the Dark Wood
Sketch for the Statue of a Slave
Body Parts
The Caves
Wings
Snow
Dusk

Achill: The Island
Gob an Choire: The Sound
The Major
Sraheens: na Sraithníní: Small Holms
Derreens: Small Woods
Cloghmore: Big Stone
Bunafahy: Lower Grassland
Bunnacurry
The Monastery
Purteen Harbour
Inishgalloon
Trawmore: Big Strand
An Caol: Keel
Slievemore: Big Mountain
The Heinrich Böll Cottage