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For more than twenty years poetry from Northern Ireland has been amongst the most exciting in Britain. Beginning with Seamus Heaney a wave of young poets has explored the political situation there in invigorating and inventive style. The Chosen Ground explores this poetry, and in particular the dual Irish and British context which lies at its heart. How does this hybrid heritage influence poets like Mahon, Muldoon and Montague? Is the term 'Irish Poet' a valid one? What does Michael Longley mean by the often recurring word 'home'? How do Heaney's terms 'place and displacement' apply to his own work? Is Paulin's development of cultural analysis in poetry an effective response? This book offers new readings of poetry from Northern Ireland. It looks, also, behind the accepted literary-historical context for further, illuminating entries into the poetry, from the classicism of Ovid to the theories of postmodernism.