Strasbourg

With this new work, Alan Jude Moore marks a return to Dublin after the Russian poems of his second collection, Lost Republics.

The title, Strasbourg, reflects how that small Alsatian city is now one of our capitals and how, despite its small island status, Ireland's place has always been firmly in Europe and its citizens tied to a greater scheme of things, outside of a narrow nationalism and theocracy that has constrained the country's politics for almost 100 years.

It is about our politics, societies and civilizations and how they have arrived at the points we now find them, some in need of greater examination than others. It is about how, through the cities and centres of Europe, through the movement of people, information and ideas, we have been constantly changing and developing, through empires and republics, as citizens and collectives.

This book, Moore's third collection, is about Dublin but also by extension it is about Europe and the citizen, about how we are more united by its expanse, by our common interests, needs and histories than we are divided by its nations and borders. As the territories of Europe, especially Ireland, seek to renew themselves, it is by this common ground that we might discover where to next.

Alan Jude Moore is from Dublin. His two previous collections of poetry, Black State Cars (2004) and Lost Republics (2008), are also published by Salmon. As well as being widely published in the English speaking world, his work has been published in Italian, Russian and Turkish. His short fiction has been twice short-listed for the Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writing.