One of the many wonderful scenes in Flann O'Brien's novel At Swim-Two-Birds has Jem Casey, "the Poet of the Pick and the Bard of Booterstown," kneeling to assist the injured King Sweeny, a man of words in his own right: "poet on poet, a bard unthorning a fellow-bard," O'Brien inscribes that moment. Almost inevitably I thought of that scene when I finally sat down with Notes from His Contemporaries: A Tribute to Michael Hartnett, a substantial book of poems and prose that landed on my doorstep around a year ago.