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Tom Walker, Irish Literary Supplement, Spring 2019 IRISH LITERARY SUPPLEMENT • SPRING 2019 PAGE 5 The Poet’s Chair: Writings from the Ireland Chair of Poetry BY TOM WALKER figure by virtue of his compelling criticism are depicted as gradually giving a way to a entirely different from Irish,” while also as well his poems. It seems fitting, there- need to write about his “own wellsprings,” being “outside an English-speaking world N THE WINTER 1955 issue of Studies , the fore, that one of the characteristically “the hills of Tyrone” and “a Belfast man in for so long,” helped her to “focus more than IEnglish poet-critic Donald Davie pub- generous outcomes of his winning of the the Crown Bar,” traveling far “in order to ever on Irish” (55). Again, to go away is lished his “Reflections of an English Writer Nobel Prize was the establishment in 1998 write about homely things” (4–6). A further actually to come back to a newly enriched in Ireland.” Having lectured at Trinity of the Ireland Chair of Poetry. Jointly held paradox also offered is that finding “your and complex sense of home. College Dublin for five years, he noted his between Queen’s University Belfast, Trinity own voice [...] does not isolate you, but The historical and vernacular richness strong impression that “the literary inde- College Dublin, University College Dublin restores you to your people.” Yet in making that Ní Dhomhnaill has come to access in pendence of Ireland” was by now “an and the Arts Council, and modeled on the such connections to his home place and learning Turkish and reading its literature accomplished fact.” Part of what charac- Oxford Chair of Poetry that had been held people, Montague is crucially not seeking to stands in implicit contrast to the subject terized this difference was that, by contrast by Heaney (and that has since been held by deny the forces that are breaking down “the matter of her first lecture “Níl Cead Isteach with England and America, “the ties be- Paul Muldoon), one of the three-year post’s unit of the parish” across the world. Rather ag an bPobal / Public Access Denied.” By tween poetry and society” in Ireland had responsibilities includes giving annual pub- his poetry seeks in such circumstances to way of series of pilgrimages to unmarked “not yet been snapped.” But Davie also lic lectures. This has offered a further forum hold a particular receding way of life “in the sites of literary significance to the Irish argued that “nothing is more striking in the for contemporary poets to reflect critically heart and the head” (11–12). language in Counties Westmeath, Ros- Anglo-Irish tradition that the absence of any on poetry, steering a welcome course be- A similar sense of poetry’s delicate common, Wicklow, Cork, as well as in true critic at all, certainly of any tradition.” tween the ivory tower and the confines of ability to offer momentary imaginative and Belfast and Dublin, she evokes something reviewery. musical harmony against the fractured of the “deeply coded heritage of Ireland, John Montague . The chair is now on to its seventh dis- realities of history is arrived at by the end of which is well-nigh invisible to the ordinary tinguished incumbent, Eiléan Ní Chuillea- the second lecture, “Short Thoughts on the citizen” (17). Arriving map in hand at the THE BAG APRON : THE POET AND HIS náin. The lectures of the three previous Long Poem.” It again reflects biographi- site of Ballinacor near Glenmalure in COMMUNITY incumbents, Paula Meehan, Harry Clifton, cally on Montague’s own practice, while Wicklow to see the site where “the famous DUBLIN : UNIVERSITY COLLEGE PRESS , 2017. and Michael Longley, were published in also placing the genesis of the polyvocal, poems that make up the Leabhar Branach HBK €20 . standalone volumes by University College musical recorded performance of The (Book of the O’Byrnes ) were composed” Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill . Dublin Press. And the same publisher has Rough Field in the context of a whistlestop (20), a sign stops her “dead in my tracks— now also republished as separate books the historical survey of the long poem across PUBLIC ACCESS DENIED . I sigh. I suppose I CEAD ISTEACH / ENTRY PERMITTED . lectures of the first three incumbents, John several literary traditions. The lecture then should be pleased that the raths are still DUBLIN : UNIVERSITY COLLEGE PRESS , 2017. Montague, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Paul ends by reflecting back from Ulster’s there at all. At any moment someone could HBK €20. Durcan—which had originally been brought problems to the deep, unresolved tensions take a JCB to them and no one would be Paul Durcan. out in a single volume, The Poet’s Chair , by they reveal about the history of Western any the wiser. For all their praise in poem THREE EUROPEAN POETS . Lilliput Press in 2008. Beautifully printed Europe, going back to the Reformation. after poem, they have no public monument DUBLIN : UNIVERSITY COLLEGE PRESS , 2017. and bound, this substantial series of Indeed Montague’s critical observations status” (25). HBK €20. published lectures pays testament to the rich repeatedly cut across critical truisms about Different and more recent kinds of by- diversity of contemporary Irish poetry and the supposed dichotomy between the local ways within Irish poetry are also followed Much of Davie’s critique rings true its criticism. It also offers the opportunity to and the international, and the modern and in Paul Durcan’s impassioned lectures. down to the present. For all that Ireland’s consider how several important Irish poets the traditional within contemporary Irish They focus in turn on the work of three poets and their poetry are, of course, have variously gone about the challenge of poetry. This is also seen in his final lecture, contemporaries, Anthony Cronin, Michael connected to a host of non-Irish works and professing poetry in the public sphere. “Samuel Beckett, Neighbour.” Its affec- Hartnett, and Harry Clifton. Less bio- figures, they now lie within a distinct set of Before becoming the first holder of the tionate memoir of the poet’s friendship with graphical and more traditionally literary- traditions that constitutes the ongoing, mul- chair, Montague (who died in 2016) had Beckett while living in Paris suddenly shifts critical in mode than the other two poets’ ti-faceted story of Irish literature. A country long been an important critical voice within to a telling reflection on his own “increasing lectures, they do a wonderful job of illum- in which a poet’s funeral attracts live the modern history of Irish poetry. Going disaffection” with the modern French lite- inating each poets’ cultural and historical television and radio coverage, as happened back to his contributions to The Bell in the rary scene’s indifference towards contem- reach, and sheer intellectual complexity with the death of Seamus Heaney in 2013, early 1950s, he is perhaps most famous for porary poetry. Those who, like Montague, through several sustained and sensitive acts is also one where poetry still plays a notable calling on Irish poets to look outwards for knowingly followed Beckett and other Irish of close reading. They more than make their social role. Yet any sense of a dearth of rejuvenation towards the innovations then modernists often self-consciously chose to overarching case that these three poets” worthwhile criticism is thankfully no longer happening in the United States and France. retrace seemingly more homely or formally work has not been given the critical acclaim the case. Indeed, Davie’s comments were Throughout his career he also appraised the traditional paths. Yet this was not done out and attention it deserves. Like all the best partly made in response to an article by achievement of many Irish forebears and of an indifference to modernity but rather literary criticism, they leave you itching as Denis Donoghue and in turn provoked a fur- contemporaries, and reflected on the through a searching sense of its evolving well to delve back into the poems ther intervention by Vivian Mercier—two challenge of writing of and to Ireland. challenges. themselves. Clifton’s stock has thankfully fine critics already starting to undermine the Such threads run through his opening The rich complexity of the Irish poetic risen since Durcan’s lecture was first given, plausibility of such judgements. lecture in the chair, “The Bag Apron or the tradition, though in another language, is as evidenced by his own subsequent Moreover, while many important critics Poet and his Community.” While offering a also comparatively explored in “Kismet of appointment to the Ireland Chair of Poetry. of the Irish literary tradition have, like personal memoir, Montague also reflects the Workings of Destiny,” the second of Ní But one hopes that the lectures on Cronin Donoghue and Mercier, been academics, more generally on how poets come to sound Dhomhnaill’s wonderful lectures. Likewise and Harnett also provoke others at home much valuable criticism has also over the like themselves. A wealth of local and for- framing her observations within a memoir, and abroad to re-engage closely and criti- past sixty years been offered by practicing eign influences, ranging from the local she recounts her five fascinating years liv- cally with their work, further enriching the Irish writers. In this regard, Heaney himself South Armagh aislingí , recited by his Irish ing in Turkey in the 1970s. Paradoxically, remarkable story of modern Irish poetry. • not only wrote poetry but also vigorously teacher at school, to the Journals of André coming to feel “at home in a language so —Trinity College Dublin professed it, becoming a major literary Gide, which his pious father dared not open, “Idir dhá chomhairle”: Aifric Mac Aodhá’s Foreign News BY CAITRÍONA NÍ CHLÉIRCHÍN quirky translations resound with the echoes Well she knew that holding sophistication and a deep awareness of the of the inner rebellion of Mac Aodha’s verse.
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