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Derek Mahon Was Born in Belfast, North Lreland, in T94t

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Derek Mahon Derek Mahon was born in Belfast, North lreland, in t94t. He was educated at Trinity College in Dublin. His books of poetry include The Hudson Letter (Wake Forest University Press, 1996); Selected Poems (1993); The Yadda Letter (t992); Selected Poems (1991); Antarctica (1985); A Kensington Notebook (t98,a); The Hunt by Night (1982); Courtyards in Delft (1981); poems, 1962-1978 (1979); The Sea in Winter (1979); In Their Element: A Selection of Poems (with Seamus Heaney, t977); Light Music (t977); The Snow Party (L975); The Man Who Built His City in Snow (1972); Lives (t97z); Beyond Howth Head (1970); Ecclesíastes (1970); Night-Crossing (1968); Design far a Grecian Llrn (1967); and Twelve Poems (1965). Derek Mahon's published plays include The Bacchae: After Euripides (1991), The Schoal for Wives: a play in two acts after Moliére (1986), and High Time, an adaptation of a play by Moliére. He has also edited Ifie Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry (1990) and Modern Irish Paetry G97Z). He has translated Racine's Phaedra (1996); Selected Poenls by Philip ]accottet (1987), which won the Scott-Manriet Translation Prize; and lhe Chimeras by Nerval (1982). His honors include the lrish American Foundation Award, a Lannan Foundation Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the Arts Council Bursary, and the Eric Gregory Award. rllI: SN()l\, í,/\íi IY ECCLESIASTES for Louis Astko|f God, you could grow to love it, God-fearing, God- I}.lslró, ctrrllirrg chosen purist little puritan ihat, Ttr tI11, 611r. tlf N.lgtlya, for all your wiles and smiles, you are (the Is askctl t() a sn()1r, part),. dank churches, the empty §treets, the slripyard silence, the tied-up swings) and 1'hcrc is a tiIrkliIlg t>f clrina shelter your cold heart from the heat Atltl tt,a irtttl clrina, 'I of the world, fronr wonran-inquisition, from the Itcrc .rrc intrtltluctiotls. bright eyes of children. Yes you could wear black. drink water, nourish a fierce zeal l'itert cvcrytlne with locusts and wild honey, and not crtlrvcls to tlre w,indotv feel called upon to understand and forgive To rvatch thc íalling snorv. but only to speak with a bleak afflatus, and love the }anuary rains when they Stltlrv is falIing on Nagoya darken the dark doors and sink hard Arlcl íartllcr s<ltrth into the Antrim hills, the bog-meadows, the heaped orr tIrc tilcs of kyöttr. graves of your fathers. B:?]h1l red Lastrvard, bevorrd Irago, bandana and stick, that b.-rnjo, this is your lt is fallin8 country, cltrsc one eye ancl be king. Likc leaves otr tlre cold sea, Ytlr.rr pcoplc arvait you, their heavy lvashing fl.-rps ftlr you in tht, housing cstates - Elsclvhcrc thcy are burning a crctlttltrus pcople. God, you coultl tlo it, God witches ancl hcretics lrclp ytltr, stantl otr a corntr stiff rvitlt rltettlric, ln the boiiing squares, lrr<rntising ntrt|ring trIttlcr tltc srtIr. , TlrousaIrds lrave died since clawn Irr the service Of barbarous kings - IJut thcre is silence Itr tltc lrtrttsts tlf Nagoya And tIre lrills clf lse. |' '= *l,-, ii í.i],liT ?*o ilu +,,i i ,:i ,!!;xir,;;jqlr:;;:3.s:rl;1,.g Born in Leeds, Yorkshire, on 25 January L949, poet, critic and playwright Tom (Thomas Neilson) Paulin was raised in Belfast in Northern lreland where his father was the headmaster of a grammar school, and his mother was a doctor, He was educated at Hull University and Lincoln College, Oxford. He lectured in English at the University of Nottingham from L97Z until 1989, and was Reader in Poetry from 1989 until 1994. He was a director of Field Day Theatre Company in Derry, Northern lreland. He has also taught at the University of Virginia and was Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Reading. He is now G. M. Young Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford. He is a well-known broadcaster and a regular member of the panel for the BBC Television arts programme'Newsnight Review'. Much of his early poetry reflects the political situation in Northern Ireland and the sectarian violence which has beset the province since the late 1960s. His collections include A State of ]ustíce (L977), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; The Strange Museum (1980), which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; Liberty lree (1983) and the acclaimed Fivemíletown (1987), which explores Northern Irish Protestant culture and identities. Later collections include Walking a Line (1994) and Ifre Wind Dag (1999), which was shottlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, The Invasion Handbook (2aa2) is the first instalment of an epic poem about the Second World War, His non-fiction includes Ireland and the English Crísis (1984), Mínotaur: Poetry and the Natíon Sfafe (1992) and Ihe Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radícal Swle (1998), a critical study of the nineteenth*century essayist and radical. Tom Paulin is editor of The Faber Book of Polítical Verse (1986) and lhe Faber Book af Vernacular Poetry (1990). His plays include The Riot Act: A Version of Sophacles' Antigane, which toured lreland in 1984, and All the Way to the Empire Room which was broadcast by the BBC in 1994. Tom paulin lives in oxford with his wife and two sons. r:: €;i".j..:ii? ?|" :',,.!n ( i n a l p h a betica t o rde r) Biography, Crjticism. Drama, Essays, Non-fiction, Poetry, Radio drama Theoretical Locations Ulsterman Publications, 1975 Thomas Hardy: The Poetry of Perception Macmillan , 1975 A State ofJustice Faber and Faber, L977 Personal Column Ulsterman Publications, 1978 The Strange Museum Faber and Faber, 1980 The Book of Juniper Bloodaxe, 1981 Liberty Tree Faber and Faber, 1983 A New Look at the Language Question Field Day, 1983 Ireland and the English Crisis Bloodaxe, t9B4 The Argument at Great Tew: A Poem Willbrook Press, 1985 The Riot Actl A Version of Sophocles' Antigone Faber and Faber, 1985 Fivemiletown Faber and Faber, L9B7 The Hillsborough Script: A Dramatic Satire Faber and Faber, 1987 The Faber Book of Political Verse (editor) Faber and Faber, 1990 The Faber Book of Vernacular Poetry (editor) Faber and Faber, 1990 Seize the Fire: A Version of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound Faber and Faber, 1990 Minotaur: Poetry and the Nation State Faber and Faber, t99Z Selected Poems 1972-1990 Faber and Faber, 1993 Walking a Line Faber and Faber, t994 Writing to the Momentl Selected Critical Essays 1980-1996 Faber and Faber, 1996 The Day-§tar of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style Faber and Faber, 199B The Wind Dog Faber and Faber, 1999 The Fight and other lítíritings by William Hazlitt (co-editor with David Chandler) Penguin, 2000 Thomas Hardyl Poems selected by Tom Paulin (editor) Faber and Faber, 2001 The Invasion Handbook Faber and Faber,2aO2 ii",,,";;,,,:,:,:.l',;., - :_,,,i,,,-,,,i1,1,,',"',;'i,,,l,,i *' L976 Eric Gregory Award 1978 §omerset Maugham Award A State of Justíce 1982 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize The Strange Museum 1999 T. S, Eliot Prize (shortlist) The Wínd Dog -,,, li i,,i,::lj i,,li l,.;i,i;:1 _ ,, , l' i: :1 i :': lil i,':1;;: i,:: ,,1 ,;, Tom Paulin is a poet whose work more or less divides in two, the earlier work, first published in A State of }ustice {1977), is taut and political, evoking an Ulster as grim as Eastern Europe: 'The city is built on mud and wrath, Its weather predicted, its streetlamps Light up in the glowering, crowded evenings. Time switches, ripped from them, are clamped To sticks of sweet, sweating explosive.' ('Under the Eyes') This is very much a young man's book and he sometimes strikes a note reminiscent of early Thom Gunn '.,.,up here, I'm free í and know a type of power, a certain kind of law' ('Under a Roof). In The Strange Museum (t980), his scope becomes more imaginative/ more fiction-making. In 'Second Rate Republics' the place could be anywhere where urban alienation rules: flats with 'a dull ripe smell of gas, l a pile of envelopes fading / on the hall table'. Liber$ Iree (1983) focuses more explicitly on Northern Ireland but a tendency appears for the first time to introduce vernacular words 'fremd', 'neapish'. In t994 Paulin edited The Faber Book of Vernacular Verse (1990) and he became a great advocate and practitioner of both vernacular and coined words, the existing dictionary words being inadequate for his task. 'Desertmartin' is one of his most eloquent evocations of the bleakest kind of ulster unionism: 'Here the word has withered to a few Parched certainties, and the charred stubb|e Tightens like a black belt, a crop of Bibles.' The change in Paulin's style was signalled 'I am Nature: Homage to ]ackson Pollock 1912-56' in Fivemiletown (1987). This is a free-ranging poem that attempts to conjure the improvisatory processes of the celebrated 'action' painter. : 'You know I pushed my Soft bap Out her funky vulva Her black thighs Was Scotch-Irish A scrake A scratch A screighulaidagh' Tom Paulin's writing entered a new, prolific phase with Walking a Líne (t994) and continued with The Wind Dog (1999). His style was free, unbuttoned, using many coined words to convey the improvisatory nature of thought,In Walkíng a Line, he is like D. H. Lawrence in trying to capture the essences of things in free verse. In lhe Wind Dog the poems often proceed by free association, rather as Paul Muldoon's do in the title poem 'cargo cult' leads him to Masefield's poem and then via the word 'cheap' to the 'clishclash' of 'cheapo rings on a curtain pole'.
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