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Unbound Poet UNBO n 1955 1 wrote a very bad piece of verse which was published in the Limerick Weekly Echo. I was thirteen: I wrote the piece for no good reason, unless it were to make up for my poverty. One of my teachers descended on me wrathfully; it was a copy of the work of that great poet, T.D. Shanahan, he said. The headmaster, Frank Finucane, defended me. The other teacher challenged me to write a set poem in two weeks. Frank Finucane called his class to a halt, and with his encourage- ment I finished the poem in ten minutes. The other teacher retreated, and never spoke to me again. So, at thirteen, I found that being a poet in Ireland is, contraty to what the Americans think, an incongruity. That was in Newcastle West, Co. Limerick S.. I left the national school in 1956 and lost an ally. Secondary school came then, and I wrote many poems (all, fortunately, lost) and made a new enemy, my English teacher. For five years I was beaten more often for "meditating the Muse", as he called it, than for lack of learning. But my poetry changed for the better, not because of the school, but because I partook of an old lrish custom: the girl I loved at the time entered a convent. This, and the claustrophobia of Newcastle West, its rich and its poor, its bullying priest, tur- ned me to write about myself. Any op- pression I encountered was not direct. I was oppressed by what was inherent in the town's way of life, the patronising society doled out bread and boots to the poor; the reading of subscriptions from the pulpit, the quashed scandals, Michael Hartnett, from a portrait by Edward McGuire. dark secrets about the "Troubles", and had brought with me and liked it. Shor- I was a poor man's son in a secondary tly afterwards my photograph ap- school, a place I had no right to be, as I peared in the Sunday Review, cap- was often reminded. tioned with an awful pun, "Teaboy of So the poetry went on. I had HARTN ETT the Western World". A short article published another bad piece of verse in said I was a poet. The Sunday the lrish Weekly Independent and Review had a good circulation in got a guinea for it. This brought me newspaper. Newcastle West; I had achieved my some small recognition in the town, as I left home in 1961 and went to myth, because in small towns in a few people there read that paper. As London, out of pure instinct. I worked Ireland, unless a man has a nickname the Dublin literati never really ap- as a tea-boy in a factory there, every (a reputation, good or bad), he hardly preciate a poet unless the Observer or scrap of poetry melting away. Then the exists at all. S'unday Times mention him, so the coincidences began. I met a friend from I returned home and was accepted. people of Newcastle West would not home. He introduced me to his uncle, Coincidence rested awhile. I got a job believe I was a poet unless they saw it who was working on the Sunday as a postm-an; the poetry, which rose to "down in black and w@te" in a Dublin Review; he read some of the poetry I meet the occasion of acceptance, now dwindled again. a poet before, let alone that revered tion whatever the quality of the work. I was badly read at this time, and and able personage, an editor. I found I do not pretend to know the tastes had no knowledge of modern poetry, the Bailey and went in. I was too early: of the editors at first hand, but these although I had read Yeats. I thought there were very few people there, but a can be deduced from the work and that at his death in 1939 Ireland had proliferation of liquor put me at my from the writers they publish. I men- faded out of the literary picture, and ease. John Jordan introduced himself tioned "sect" because I found the main from reading ,the English Sunday and I found that he, as an editor and a cliques (one of which I knew was split "heavies", I thought England, es- man, lived up to my preconceived no- into sub-cliques) to be "lrish Catholic" pecially London, was vibrant- with tions of reverence and ability. The room on one side and "Anglo-Irish" on the ' poetic life. Of course, I was totally where the drink was soon filled up. I other. But perhaps this is too much of a1 wrong. But I did not feel up to London was shocked to find there were so generalisation: a small percentage of again, and I had a fine job cycling many poets in Dublin, but a swift per these groups appeared in the publica- around the countryside, finishing just capita comparison between Newcastle tions of both . (there were poets who after midday, and I was beginning to be West and the Capital showed me the did not associate with either group but lulled into the soft security of my own number was just. who were categorised, nevertheless). myth. John Jordan had many guests to Of course, poets of more than lrish Then the second coincidence came. entertain, so I was left alone for some standing were patronised by both par- I gof a widd letter and numerous poems time with the first glass of sherry I had ties, whatever their origins. from Dublin from a young man called ever tasted and I watched. The talk But to return to 1962. When the Paul Durcan early in 1962. He had read was not the literary iambic I expected Bailey reception ended I was in- the article in the Sunday Review. He and I learned that the poets and writers troduced to my first literary pub. Again wanted my opinion of his work, and did not talk shop in public. the hope of sparkling talk foolishly also to see some of mine. His poems came to me: again I heard racing here mad, rich and full of classical allu- I heard snippets of scandal straight results, the rapid solution of world sions. I was delighted: there was from the Vatican, the names of various crises and the extra bonus of gossip of another poet in Ireland! I sent him racehorses; a novelist sang a bawdy the shady love lives of absentees. John some of my poems, which I had written song in his braces and a publisher Jordan introduced me to Patrick in 195819, and heard no more for a sprang to the middle of the floor and Kavanagh, whom I did not know. I long time. shouted: "Bring on the mots!" (I leant over to shake his hand but he One day I went to Galway to see a thought he was calling in mock French declined saying: "I don't know him", girl. Paul Durcan arrived in Newcastle for sublime aphorisms: later I found out gruffly. West, I had missed meeting my first exactly what a mot was). I asked John Jordan what he was: poet and was furious, but calmed down Although there were many poets he referred me to the biographical when my mother told me he had come present there were at least as many notes in Poetry Ireland. I was not im- in a car. So he was rich - and ordinary; more not; later I noticed that while pressed, so I read the poem he had from his poems I had expected him to magazine A published its own brood of contributed. I was young and foolish come on a yak, at least. Then one mor- writers, magazine B excluded that par- and not aware that Patrick Kavanagh ning in September I was sorting the ticular brood. I thought this strange: was listening and I said: "It's not poetry letters inethe post office and there was literary products are merely com- at all: it's got the word 'garage' in it". one for me with a Dublin postmark and modities at magazine level, and the He towered up, scattering drink on the in a strange hand. It praised my poetry, only rule of non-publication should be floor, shouted: "You insolent pup!" and said six of my poems were accepted for lack of quality: but this is not the left the table. I had not realised he was Poetry Ireland, and it also invited me criterion. In the next few years I looked the pub idol. I thought he was a boor: I to a reception to mark the launching of carefully at certain publications and reversed this opinion when I read his the magazine. So on September 12th, formed these opinions: lack of quality poetry later and saw he was a poet in- 1962, 1 borrowed a suit, hitch-hiked to is no bar to publication if the writer is deed. But he played to the stalls: he Dublin, and set off to discover the compatible to the editor in personality went into the pub for company and he literary world. and sect. However, incompatibilities on had to make the best of the company I was very nervous. I had never met those scores may be a bar to publica- he found. The fees which enabled me to spend my first year in Dublin in U.C.D. were supplied by a man who suffers that rare disease in this practical world, generosity: a man who gave with no ul- terior motive like kindness, but merely because of the need of the recipient, and who asked for no interest, material or metaphysical.
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