Gerard Smyth is inescapably a poet of the inward city. His city
is one in which every day comes as news: a city of endless
stories, of streets and neighbourhoods rich with associations,
and a city of early memories. He gives us a city of found
objects and found connections…  - O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award
citation  Gerard Smyth has achieved a hard-won grace and fluency
over many years and now writes with controlled passion and
lyrical intensity, the result of a dedication to the truth of
poetry that has involved a steady pilgrimage. If the work began
with a dismal view of human living, imaged through inner city
Dublin, it is the spare language and affectionate, though
unsparing, knowledge of contemporary life, combined with
unobstrusive faith in human possibility, that give the later
poems a relevance, a music and a depth unique to the poetry of
our time. The Mirror Tent offers poems that are mature and
accomplished, their surface beauty offering, to a more
concentrated reading, a depth and unselfconscious wisd