A Little Bit of Poetry
When I'm feeling somewhat low, or perhaps empty or lacking in inspiration even, it is then that I instinctively look to poetry for something uplifting, fulfilling or inspiring - even healing, if possible. As I write these notes here, a friend of mine is preparing a collection of my poems in the Irish language for publication. It took me best part of a week to sift through a couple of hundred poems I had written in Gaeilge to pick out around fifty for a collection to send on to him. Doing that was literally a labour of love and a great sustenance for my soul. Not that I'm being egotistical here as real poetry, or more correctly the making of poems, has more to do with soul than with ego. However, as I had to read them thoroughly to pick some out, the reader will forgive me some little self-obsession, at least momentarily. Further, I was overcome with both emotion and inspiration looking back at my spiritual path over the past twenty years as revealed in those poems. They showed both highs and lows, literally the whole gamut of my emotional and spiritual experience during that particular period of time in my life.
Given that little introduction, I have always found it hard to write poems unless I drank deeply at the wells of poetry written by others. In this regard the volumes of poetry on my bookshelves have always been a source of sustenance for me. Recently I purchased a wonderful book called An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, edited by Wes Davis, published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, London and Harvard, 2012. The list of modern Irish poets therein anthologized is as well selected as it is long. Davis points out rather wisely that the meaning he is taking from the adjective "modern" is that of "recent" rather than "modernist." This gives this anthologist a far wider scope for choosing his poets and poems.
The old reliables of modern Irish poetry are there like the ones who have now passed on like Colum, Clarke, C.Day Lewis, Kavanagh, McNeice and Beckett, though he chooses to omit Yeats, who admittedly has been over-anthologized almost, so I can forgive Davis that omission. Interestingly, I salute the editor for including poems from the Gaeilge in translation - poems from the pen of the wonderful modern poets like Máirtín Ó Díreáin, Seán Ó'Ríordain, Michael Davitt, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Cathal Ó'Searcaigh. Anyone who knows no Gaelic will not have read the wonderful poems of these singularly good modern poets in the Irish language, so including some of their work at least in translation in a volume such as this is truly a mark of an insightful editor and anthologist.
Again, in keeping with his remit, namely including as many recent and contemporary poets writing here in Ireland, Davis has set himself no easy task.* Anthologies will almost always be known (and slated) for the poets they have left out rather than for those whom they have included.
The modern poets who are still living and writing, whom Davis includes here, are: Pádraic Fiacc, Richard Murphy, Anthony Cronin, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Des O'Grady, Brendan Kennelly, Michael Longley, Seamus Deane, Eamon Grennan, Derek Mahon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Eavan Boland, John Ennis, Bernard O'Donoghue, Frank Ormsby, Ciarán Carson, Tom Paulin, Medbh McGuckian, Peter Fallon, Paul Muldoon, Harry Cliften, Gerald Dawe, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Matthew Sweeney, Dennis O'Driscoll, Mary O'Malley, Paula Meehan, Peter Sirr, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Vona Groarke, Edna Wyley, Sarah Berkeley, Conor O'Callaghan, Justin Quinn, David Wheatley, and Sinéad Morrissey. In all, Davis includes some 53 poets within a page count of 976 pages, including indices. This book will certainly give any reader a comprehensive overview of modern Irish poetry. Also the editor gives an informative two page introduction to each of his selected poets that is insightful even to anyone well-read in any of these authors.
However, since the publication of this rather comprehensive volume some of the anthologized poet have passed on, namely, Pearse Hutchinson and our very own Nobel Laureate of Poetry, Seamus Heaney.
Especially enriching for the present reader was reading the translations of the Gaelic poets into English most of whose poems he has read in the original. However, Máirtín Ó Díreáin "Berkeley" was new to me as I had not read it in its original, or at least I cannot recall reading it. What is surprising is the philosophical depth of this poem insofar as Ó'Díreáin was not noted for writing much on philosophical themes. This poem discusses how once the poet was totally in agreement with those who disagreed with Berkeley's immaterialism or subjective idealism that denied the materiality of things. The reader will remember that Dr. Johnston famously refuted the Bishop of Cloyne by injuring his foot in kicking a rock, and the poet informs us that once he had been in Dr Johnston's school of belief, but that as he aged he became somewhat skeptical about materialism and realism when he states in the final verse of the poem:
I don't deny I agreed
With those great men for a while
But since the grey stones began
To turn to dreams in my mind I do not know, my dear Bishop,
That you weren't the one who went on the deep
While the great men remained on the shore. (p.145)
A trilogy of short four-liners from the pen of the great humorist poet Brendan Kennelly makes for a wonderful few minutes bedside read for their clipped lines that capture traditional Irish wisdom. I have not space here to quote all three poems, so I'll just quote one:
The old Irish word for kiss
is drink.
When a man drinks a woman
he knows how stupid it is to think. (p. 324)
Perhaps, the heart-rending power of Eavan Boland's poem on the death march of a (married?) couple in search of food during the Great Famine (or as we know it in Irish, "An Gorta Mór," or "The Great Hunger") was another gem I discovered in this volume. It appeals to me as the sense of our Irish identity is very much linked with our experience of famine, as much of our collective unconscious as a nation in inextricably bound up with shame and guilt, oppression and depression as a result of that dreadful tragedy. I'll finish with some lines from this powerful poem:
In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold, of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
In short, there has never been a single-volume anthology of modern Irish poetry so significant and groundbreaking as An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry reviewed here. Collected therein is a comprehensive representation of the Irish poetic achievement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For lovers of poetry or makers of poems I highly recommend this as a treasure trove into which to dip when the spirits are low or when the heart is in need of inspiration. I know I will keep it by my bedside for the foreseeable future. I paid €25 for my copy in Eason's in Dublin.
Endnote
*One of the things I have liked to do since I was a young boy, and an occupation I continue to this day, is to hand-write poems I love into a bound notebook to make my own anthology of favourite poems. I have at least ten of these volumes, which I have gathered over the years, on shelves in a box-room upstairs. Now, if the reader were to ask me to select the best of those poems that I lovingly transcribed over the years, I'd be hard put to make a judicious choice. The lesson I have learned from that is that the task of anyone who sets out to make selections or anthologies is truly a hard one.
 |
| My copy of this Anthology |
Given that little introduction, I have always found it hard to write poems unless I drank deeply at the wells of poetry written by others. In this regard the volumes of poetry on my bookshelves have always been a source of sustenance for me. Recently I purchased a wonderful book called An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, edited by Wes Davis, published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, London and Harvard, 2012. The list of modern Irish poets therein anthologized is as well selected as it is long. Davis points out rather wisely that the meaning he is taking from the adjective "modern" is that of "recent" rather than "modernist." This gives this anthologist a far wider scope for choosing his poets and poems.
The old reliables of modern Irish poetry are there like the ones who have now passed on like Colum, Clarke, C.Day Lewis, Kavanagh, McNeice and Beckett, though he chooses to omit Yeats, who admittedly has been over-anthologized almost, so I can forgive Davis that omission. Interestingly, I salute the editor for including poems from the Gaeilge in translation - poems from the pen of the wonderful modern poets like Máirtín Ó Díreáin, Seán Ó'Ríordain, Michael Davitt, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Cathal Ó'Searcaigh. Anyone who knows no Gaelic will not have read the wonderful poems of these singularly good modern poets in the Irish language, so including some of their work at least in translation in a volume such as this is truly a mark of an insightful editor and anthologist.
Again, in keeping with his remit, namely including as many recent and contemporary poets writing here in Ireland, Davis has set himself no easy task.* Anthologies will almost always be known (and slated) for the poets they have left out rather than for those whom they have included.
The modern poets who are still living and writing, whom Davis includes here, are: Pádraic Fiacc, Richard Murphy, Anthony Cronin, Thomas Kinsella, John Montague, Des O'Grady, Brendan Kennelly, Michael Longley, Seamus Deane, Eamon Grennan, Derek Mahon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Eavan Boland, John Ennis, Bernard O'Donoghue, Frank Ormsby, Ciarán Carson, Tom Paulin, Medbh McGuckian, Peter Fallon, Paul Muldoon, Harry Cliften, Gerald Dawe, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Matthew Sweeney, Dennis O'Driscoll, Mary O'Malley, Paula Meehan, Peter Sirr, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Vona Groarke, Edna Wyley, Sarah Berkeley, Conor O'Callaghan, Justin Quinn, David Wheatley, and Sinéad Morrissey. In all, Davis includes some 53 poets within a page count of 976 pages, including indices. This book will certainly give any reader a comprehensive overview of modern Irish poetry. Also the editor gives an informative two page introduction to each of his selected poets that is insightful even to anyone well-read in any of these authors.
However, since the publication of this rather comprehensive volume some of the anthologized poet have passed on, namely, Pearse Hutchinson and our very own Nobel Laureate of Poetry, Seamus Heaney.
Especially enriching for the present reader was reading the translations of the Gaelic poets into English most of whose poems he has read in the original. However, Máirtín Ó Díreáin "Berkeley" was new to me as I had not read it in its original, or at least I cannot recall reading it. What is surprising is the philosophical depth of this poem insofar as Ó'Díreáin was not noted for writing much on philosophical themes. This poem discusses how once the poet was totally in agreement with those who disagreed with Berkeley's immaterialism or subjective idealism that denied the materiality of things. The reader will remember that Dr. Johnston famously refuted the Bishop of Cloyne by injuring his foot in kicking a rock, and the poet informs us that once he had been in Dr Johnston's school of belief, but that as he aged he became somewhat skeptical about materialism and realism when he states in the final verse of the poem:
I don't deny I agreed
With those great men for a while
But since the grey stones began
To turn to dreams in my mind I do not know, my dear Bishop,
That you weren't the one who went on the deep
While the great men remained on the shore. (p.145)
A trilogy of short four-liners from the pen of the great humorist poet Brendan Kennelly makes for a wonderful few minutes bedside read for their clipped lines that capture traditional Irish wisdom. I have not space here to quote all three poems, so I'll just quote one:
The old Irish word for kiss
is drink.
When a man drinks a woman
he knows how stupid it is to think. (p. 324)
Perhaps, the heart-rending power of Eavan Boland's poem on the death march of a (married?) couple in search of food during the Great Famine (or as we know it in Irish, "An Gorta Mór," or "The Great Hunger") was another gem I discovered in this volume. It appeals to me as the sense of our Irish identity is very much linked with our experience of famine, as much of our collective unconscious as a nation in inextricably bound up with shame and guilt, oppression and depression as a result of that dreadful tragedy. I'll finish with some lines from this powerful poem:
In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold, of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
In short, there has never been a single-volume anthology of modern Irish poetry so significant and groundbreaking as An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry reviewed here. Collected therein is a comprehensive representation of the Irish poetic achievement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For lovers of poetry or makers of poems I highly recommend this as a treasure trove into which to dip when the spirits are low or when the heart is in need of inspiration. I know I will keep it by my bedside for the foreseeable future. I paid €25 for my copy in Eason's in Dublin.
Endnote
*One of the things I have liked to do since I was a young boy, and an occupation I continue to this day, is to hand-write poems I love into a bound notebook to make my own anthology of favourite poems. I have at least ten of these volumes, which I have gathered over the years, on shelves in a box-room upstairs. Now, if the reader were to ask me to select the best of those poems that I lovingly transcribed over the years, I'd be hard put to make a judicious choice. The lesson I have learned from that is that the task of anyone who sets out to make selections or anthologies is truly a hard one.
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