The contexts and intertexts Corcoran establishes for the study include the contentious debate between 'nationalist' and 'revisionist' criticism; the relationship between Irish and American poetry; the writing of 'place' and its political significance; the focus on sexuality and eroticism; the persistence of religious impulse or theological content; the Irish language and the preoccupation with forms of translation; and the foregrounding of textuality, which has affinities with, and may be usefully interpreted in relation to, some postmodern literary and cultural theory.

Poets of Modern Ireland is a major contribution to the critical reception of modern poetry and focuses upon the major issues of debate in poetry criticism in Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States.