_____________________________________ THE NEW WAVE OF INNOVATIVE WRITERS IN IRELAND by Séamas Cain [as presented to the “IRELAND IN CRISIS” Conference, the 2012 International Conference of ICIS : The International Congress of Irish Studies, meeting on 10 and 11 July 2012 at International House on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley] ( A Preface ) When I was a boy, bhí buachaill ann fadó fadó indeed, all of the literary works of James Joyce were banned in Ireland. He was the devil himself! Or, so it was said. But today, Joyce and all of his works have become an obsession, a veritable cult, and a significant extension of the tourist industry, in Ireland. Thus I am very much drawn to the paramyth aspects of this change of fortune for “James Joyce” … whether as the writer himself or as the legend of self. Literary critics and literary historians, around the world, and for a number of decades, have said that there have been NO literary descendants of James Joyce, in or out of Ireland. However, one “crisis” of Ireland I have noticed for several years now has been the emergence of a New Wave of INNOVATIVE writers and poets, in Ireland and within the Irish diaspora. Descendants but not imitators of the works of James Joyce, these new wave writers are self-confidently moving in new directions and shaking-up the cultural scene. 1 ( The Precursors ) * Niall Montgomery was an enthusiast for the writings of James Joyce. Indeed, for many years he was perhaps Joyce's greatest champion in Ireland. On 4 July 1953, Montgomery made a recording at Peter Hunt Studios in Dublin of himself reading selections from his own poetry and much larger sections from Joyce's Finnegans Wake. (These three sound tape reels are on deposit in the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University.) Then in 1958, Niall Montgomery and Herbert Read staged a “happening” at a surrealist art exhibition at The Building Centre, 17 Lower Baggot Street, in Dublin. Readings of Joycean texts were part of the schedule-of-events. On 5 April 1960, again at Peter Hunt Studios in Dublin, Montgomery made a recording of himself reading selections from his own poetry and then much larger sections from Joyce's works. (Again the recording was sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard.) On 27 September 1962, again recorded for Harvard University at Peter Hunt Studios, Niall Montgomery discussed the importance of the writings of James Joyce. (These two sound tape reels are on deposit at the Woodberry Poetry Room.) Then in 1967, in Dublin, Montgomery was one of the organizers and major contributors to “The Celtic Master : A Contribution To The First James Joyce Symposium.” (The proceedings of this Symposium were published in 1968 by DOLMEN PRESS in Ireland.) Gérard Bodinier acknowledged the importance of the literary work(s) of Niall Montgomery, and translated several of his poems into French. See, for example, the article “Irlande : Coïncidences avec le Surréalisme,” on pages 60 to 68 of Issue Number 27 (for February of 1981) of the journal Le Temps parallèle, Paris, France. Nevertheless, to this day, no publisher in or out of Ireland has brought out a Selected or Collected edition of the poetry of Niall Montgomery. Harvard Library acquired all of his manuscripts. No archive and no library in Ireland protested. And today the manuscripts are ignored by one and all. 2 J.C.C. Mays, of Ballycullen, County Wicklow, in the proceedings of the Third Cork Poetry Conference 2000, said “Or take Niall Montgomery, our only genuine surrealist. It is difficult to think he would have done differently if given six months at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. I trust not. His inspiration as a writer was very close to what inhibited him from publishing : nervously flickering intelligence, disinclination to repeat the obvious, modesty and ambition in self-cancelling embrace.” * On Friday, September 13th, 1985, in Duluth, Minnesota, I was privileged to introduce Thomas Kinsella at his reading before an audience of 400 people. I enjoyed several days of lengthy conversations with Kinsella. I learned quite a lot from him about the varieties of innovative and not-so- innovative approaches to contemporary poetry. Indeed, it is NOT Seamus Heaney but Thomas Kinsella that I see as the grand old man of contemporary Irish poetry! And certainly, it is Kinsella that is the literary grandfather of the new wave of innovative writers in Ireland north and south! Indeed, I think that Thomas Kinsella is the greatest Irish poet of his generation. Seamus Heaney is a fine poet. However, Thomas Kinsella is a consumate poet who is not afraid to follow his muse wherever it leads him. His poetry shows levels of experimentation and depth of thematic that Heaney's work does not. Fifty years from now we may see Kinsella as the Yeats of his generation while Heaney will be regarded as but a pale Gogarty in comparison. The Papers of the Irish poet Thomas Kinsella have gone to the MARBL Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Amazingly, the MARBL Library at Emory also holds the Papers of the Irish poets Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Peter Fallon/The Gallery Press Collection, Ted Hughes, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian, Charles Montieth, Paul Muldoon, Edna O'Brien, Desmond O'Grady, Frank Ormsby, Tom Paulin, and James Simmons as well as other more or less contemporary Irish poets. Most of these manuscript collections have been purchased by Emory. Amazing! that the National Library of Ireland would not have acted more decisively to keep these manuscript collections (of literary and 3 historic importance) in Ireland! What a profound crisis for Irish culture. Or, is it not so amazing after all? given the back-of-the-hand treatment to most Irish authors in the past and present. * Maurice Scully turned for inspiration and interaction to the British avant- garde. He is the author of Humming, published in 2009 by Shearsman Books in Exeter, England; Doing The Same In English : A Sampler, co- published in 2008 by Syracuse University Press in Syracuse, New York and The Dedalus Press in Dublin; From Zulu Dynamite, published in 1997 by Longhouse at Brattleboro, Vermont; Certain Pages, published in 1992 by Form Books (In-Press Printers) at London, England; Five Freedoms Of Movement, published in 1987 by Galloping Dog Press at Newcastle-upon- Tyne in England; and Love Poems And Others, published in 1981 by Raven Arts Press in Dublin. * Gabriel Rosenstock is the author of Uttering Her Name, published in 2009 by Salmon Poetry of Knockeven at the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, Ireland; Haiku Enlightenment and Haiku : The Gentle Art Of Disappearing, both published in 2009 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing at Newcastle- upon-Tyne in England; Rogha Dánta : Selected Poems, published in 2005 by Cló Iar-Chonnachta at Indreabhán in Conamara; Cold Moon : The Erotic Haiku Of Gabriel Rosenstock, published in 1993 by Brandon Book Publishers at Dingle in County Kerry; Dánta Duitse! : Scothvéarsaí Do Dhaoine Óga, published in 1988 by Cló Iar-Chonnachta at Béal an Daingin in Conamara; and Susanne Sa Seomra Folchta, published in 1973 by Clodhanna in Dublin. In a letter to me dated 16 July 1975, from the town of An Charraig Dhubh in County Dublin, Gabriel Rosenstock, describing a previous “new wave” of poetry in the Irish-language, wrote “The new literature can be considered as a reaction against cliché, as an attempt to break free from that sheltering torpor which either refused or was unable to deal directly with modern life on its own terms … Though no one trend can be isolated from this flux and given predominance, there does seem to be a shared refusal to mourn, with its own rituals and its own Weltanschauung. The influences that have gone into the making of this poetry are multifarious … What has emerged — or should we say exploded — over the last six or seven years, and partly evident in the three editions of the magazine 4 INNTI, is a poetry less fraught with traumas of exile, neurosis, and the estranged new world. The voice of the ‘tragic generation,’ with its pained awareness of both the present and the past and the dignified rhythms inseparable from such pain, is being replaced by a new vision which ‘sings the body-mind electric,’ so to speak.” ( The New Wave ) * Ben Allen lives in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Ben in his youth was drawn into the FLUXUS arts movement. He became a skilled practitioner of Mail Art and Visual Poetry. His Xerolage 15 chapbook may be obtained from the Xexoxial Editions & Media of “mIEKAL aND” in La Farge, Wisconsin … http://xexoxial.org/is/xerolage15/by/ben_allen * Aifric Mac Aodha is the author of Gabháil Syrinx, published in 2012 by An Sagart in County Kerry. In an e-mail to me dated 29 May 2012, responding to questions for this report, Mac Aodha wrote “Some of the questions facing a poet in Irish are the same as those which confront any poet : what is the point of doing it at all? There is no money in it, and very little glory. Shelley might have been able to claim that poets were the unacknowledged legislators of the world, but Shelley was writing before the proliferation of television and the widespread availability of the Internet to working writers.” Then Aifric Mac Aodha concluded : “And if poets writing in English can feel aggrieved that the clout they have enjoyed historically has been usurped by boy bands and bloggers, the fall in status of the Irish-language poet has been dramatically greater … The verse forms that comprise such a huge part of the Irish bardic tradition were developed in a context where poets were professional, extremely important, and technically accomplished.