The Weather in Japan
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| Author | Michael Longley |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Nature |
| Publisher | Wake Forest University Press |
Publication date | 2000 |
| Pages | 80 pp (paperback) |
| ISBN | 9780224060431 |
The Weather in Japan is a 2000 book of poetry composed by Irish poet Michael Longley and published by Wake Forest University Press in 2000.[1] It won the Irish Times' Literature Prize for poetry, the Hawthornden Prize, and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2000.[2]
The Weather in Japan is a collection of poems dealing with the malicious battles of the United States pre-Civil War, WWI, and the Holocaust of WWII. He refers to the Odyssey many times in various poems throughout the book.[3] Longley also refers to ancient warfare and its violent as well contemporary battlefields.[3] By placing the soldiers and their hardships into the form of poetry, Longley commits the memory of these men forever to the attention of all who read and re-read this book of poetry.[4] He brings to light the Irish killing their neighbors due to the conflict of the dominance of the British-Protestant over the Catholic-Irish.[3] The longest poem in the collection describes the battlefields and cemeteries of WWI.[3]