There are only a few days left, so if you are scrambling for inspiration for that perfect gesture or that looking for that perfect gift, have a glance at IrishCentral’s ten romantic Irish ideas for St. Valentine’s Day.

Tom Quinlan calls her "one of the great wonders of the Western world."

The Irish Writers’ Centre, on Parnell Square, Dublin, in association with Alan Ardiff have launched a pendant inspired by a line of Seamus Heaney’s poetry.

Read Higgin’s poem: "When Will My Time Come"

The Irish Arts Center’s inaugural Irish Poetry Festival was a standing room only event last Saturday in New York, proving that the demand for a forum for Irish verse is as strong as ever.

RECOMMENDED

"With an ear to the ground / and my neck on the block / I would tend to my wound / in Belleek and Bellanaleck." Paul Muldoon keeps his ear very much to Irish ground (and tends to many wounds, such as in the above "Hard Drive") in his new poetry collection "Moy Sand and Gravel." As always, Muldoon can be playful and tender in the same stanza, and few poets use familiar Irish landmarks to such intimate effect. ($22 / 107 pages / Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

READ MORE ]]> http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Electric-Light-3926.html http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Electric-Light-3926.html Sun, 08 Mar 2009 10:09:24 PDT By: TOM DEIGNAN

Irish poetry lovers, rejoice - Seamus Heaney's latest collection "Electric Light" is available in the United States. Heaney's poems perfectly capture subjects which are light, dark, and all the shades in between. READ MORE ]]> http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Gather-Round-Me-The-Best-of-Irish-Popular-Poetry-3753.html http://www.irishcentral.com/ent/Gather-Round-Me-The-Best-of-Irish-Popular-Poetry-3753.html Sun, 08 Mar 2009 10:09:14 PDT By: TOM DEIGNAN

Christopher Cahill, executive director of the Institute for Irish American Studies at CUNY, has edited a wonderful book of poems entitled "Gather Round Me: The Best of Irish Popular Poetry." This slim but substantive volume is filled with familiar names such as Flann O'Brien and Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, as well as a number of anonymous, traditional songs, poems, slices of verse and more. Love, death, rebellion and emigration are among the themes we see here again and again. But as Cahill writes in his useful introduction: "The love of place, and the almost ritualistic telling over of place-names - of towns and townlands, rivers and streams, hills and mountains, counties and provinces - is a distinctively Irish concern and one that pervades the whole range of poems in this collection." ($16 / 144 pages / Beacon Press)

One of the more unique poetry collections you are likely to look at is "The Origami Crow: Journey into Japan, World Cup Summer 2002" by Eamon Carr (a founder of the band Horslips). From its unique layout (dominated by full-page, stark, black and white images) to its insistent exploration of the seemingly unpoetic topic of Ireland's performance in the 2002 global soccer tournament, Carr has certainly put together a book like few others. Ultimately, this is a modern-day Irishman ruminating on Japan, nature, life, death and, of course, soccer. ($35 / 64 pages / Seven Towers)

Wake Forest University Press continues its impressive dedication to Irish poetry in all its shapes and forms with "The New North: Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland" edited by Chris Agee. This collection includes work by Moyra Donaldson, Damian Smyth and Andy White, alongside classics by Mebdh McGukian, Paul Muldoon, Ciaran Carson and Seamus Heaney. The bulk of featured poets were all born between 1956 and 1975. Given this collection's title, it should not be surprising that, while politics and "The Troubles" are featured, many other topics and themes emerge, from technology and globalization to Ireland's place within Europe. In this sense, the poems and poets offer an insightful, lyrical look into the psyche of 21st-century Northern Ireland. ($19.95 / 301 pages / Wake Forest)