Dr Arthur Broomfield's Selected Poems marks a milestone in the celebrated career of the County Laois writer and Beckett scholar. His recent work, Ireland Calling, has reached almost every town in Ireland and has been acclaimed in USA, Australia and Canada. His work has been 'Highly Commended' in the Patrick Kavanagh poetry awards, 2015. He is the recipient of the prestigious SETU certificate of appreciation, 2022 'for blazing a new trail in poetry by innovating language and bringing newer sensibilities, for mentoring young poets and a dedicated Beckett scholarship.'
Dr Broomfield is Poetry Ireland Poet Laureate of Mountmellick.
French philosopher Jacque Derrida has said that literature is the genre where we can say anything, and by this, and so many other definitions, these poems are literature of the highest order. ? Dr Eugene O'Brien, Head of the Department of English Language and Literature in Mary Immaculate College.
Broomfield is a humorous purveyor of personal truths about himself and the society in which he finds himself, whether on his way for a vasectomy or challenging unassailed positions within artistic and political life. By turns cool and spirited, his is a poetic vision which constantly questions, surprises and challenges. We should welcome it. ? Mary O'Donnell, poet and writer.
If there is a recurring theme to Broomfield's poetry it is in his resistance to ideology in any manifestation that threatens the freedoms he insists are his rights... (from the Introduction) ? Dr Clare Bolger, Author, academic and literary theorist.
