The complete poetical works of J. M. Synge arranged and introduced by Patrick Galvin
Read by Patrick Magee
'Even if we grant that exalted poetry can be kept successful by itself, the strong things of life are needed in poetry also, to show that what is exalted or tender is not made by feeble blood. It may almost be said that before verse can be human again it must learn to be brutal.' This was Synge's poetic credo, which he practised in the twenty-two autobiographical poems published shortly before his death fifty years ago.