Offers a chronological journey through the structural and thematic development of Thomas Kinsella's poetic writing. This book shows that his poetry is driven, despite the apparent rift between its early and late styles, by a consistent impulse and deliberate aesthetic of growth.

Considered to be one of the most inventive of the contemporary Irish poets, Thomas Kinsella is credited with bringing modernism to Irish verse. Despite such early successes, however, Kinsella seems to have faded into the background of the Irish poetic stage. In The Sea of Disappointment Andrew Fitzsimons offers us a chronological journey through the structural and thematic development of Kinsella's poetic writing. This well-researched and comprehensive book draws on illuminating manuscript sources and previously unpublished material as well as on Kinsella's own assistance.