Pomes Penyeach is a collection of thirteen short poems written by James Joyce. "Pomes Penyeach" contains a number of Joycean neologisms ("rosefrail", "moongrey" and "sindark", for example) created by melding two words into a new compound. The word "love" appears thirteen times in this collection of thirteen short poems (and the word "heart" appears almost as frequently) in a variety of contexts. Sometimes romantic love is intended, in tones that vary from sentimental or nostalgic ("O sighing grasses,/ Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn!") to scathing ("They mouth love's language. Gnash/ The thirteen teeth/ Your lean jaws grin with").
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer's Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles, perhaps most prominent among these the stream of consciousness technique he perfected. Other major works are the short-story collection Dubliners (1914), and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and Finnegans Wake (1939). His complete oeuvre also includes three books of poetry, a play, occasional journalism, and his published letters.