Daily Book Excerpt: Poetry
Next book on the shelf is The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry
My father gave me this book in March of 2008. I treasure it.
The Dolmen Press, operated out of Dublin, was founded in 1951 by Liam Miller, and played a crucial part in the development of Irish poetry in the mid-20th century. It was a strictly nationalist operation; before The Dolmen Press, poets (and other artists) had looked to London, mainly, as the center of the publishing world, and that was where there was the hope for their work being seen. That changed with Dolmen. Many of the great Irish poets of the mid to late 20th century were published first in Dolmen. Questions of nationalism and ancestry are, of course, potentially explosive affairs in Ireland, and having to depend on England – England! – to confer validity to their work as artists was a situation that could not stand. Irish poet Thomas Kinsella, born in 1928, was a huge part of the development of the Dolmen Press, one of its main voices, and he, in many ways, set the tone. The Penguin compilation starts with Thomas Kinsella, and though he may be a bit early to count as “contemporary”, the editors thought it was important to lump him in with the later group, the poets of the 60s, 70s and beyond, because his work was so influential, so gigantic.
Yeats is the Irish god of letters. He was the one who tried to teach by example, showing younger Irish poets, “Here is the way we should be going.” He spoke of the Celtic history, the myths and legends, trying to bring them into the current-day, as a way of retrieving that lost history. Kinsella, although his verse doesn’t read like Yeats, is strictly in that tradition. He did a lot of translating from the original Irish, and the Dolmen Press published his translation of Táin Bó Cúailnge, an epic poem based on a legendary tale in Irish history, with surviving manuscripts of said epic dating from the 12th century. It’s part of the famed Ulster Cycle, and describes a pre-Christian time in Irish history, when the Irish had their own gods and myths and legends. The eradication of the Irish language by the British was so complete that much of this work was totally lost to future generations. As Sinéad O’Connor said in her song Famine:
And then on the middle of all this
They gave us money not to teach our children Irish
And so we lost our history
And this is what I think is still hurting me
It hurt Kinsella as well. He was angry, very angry, and while he did not seclude himself in Ireland (he also lived in the United States for many years, teaching at Temple University), most of his poems come from that vast grief of what has been lost, the severing of the connection with the past. It’s a tricky balance Kinsella has: he looks to the past, but the past flows forward into the present and the future. He is not ONLY about the past. His work can be difficult, although I find some of his poems amazingly accessible. His publication of Táin Bó Cúailnge was a high watermark in Irish literary history, and that was in 1969, a terrible year for Ireland. The past informing the present. The glorious Irish past something to cling to in the awful days of the late 60s. This can be a tiresome stance (and I say that as a person of Irish descent), a way to avoid current-day problems. Look at what happens in the madrassahs across the world, a culture wanting to go back to the 12th century, because they are not equipped to handle modern life. Kinsella is not one of those. Kinsella was a Dublin boy, born and raised, his sensibility is urban, which also impacts his work and his outlook.
Austin Clarke, another Irish poet with a reputation for being difficult, just before Kinsella’s time, was Kinsella’s guiding star. (See my post on him here.) As was Ezra Pound. Kinsella’s later poems, long narrative continuing stories, similar to the Cantos, owe much to Pound.
Michael Schmidt, in his Lives of the Poets
His translations from the Irish tradition are celebrated as our chief access to an enormous, and for many years suppressed, resource. Ireland for him implies Swift and Goldsmith, Mangan, Davis and Fergusson, and preeminently Yeats… Kinsella swims naturally against tides of fashion. He does not go in fear of abstractions, he gives them body and valency. He is also alive to place, to character and voice, to direct and oblique narrative. Like early Auden, but in quite a different world, and like Yeats in an equally separate realm, he is alive to politics. It is not strange that he is less read than John Montague, perhaps than Richard Murphy and others of his contemporaries; he makes large demands of himself and consequently of his reader, in ways similar to Austin Clarke.
Seamus Heaney has written extensively on Thomas Kinsella and one of his essays is included in the prose complication Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001
Since the late 1960s, this deeply responsible poet has been absorbed in a slowly purposeful, heroically undeflected work of personal and national inquisition. From his early, formal and syntactically compact poems of the 1950s, when he defined his purpose as the quest for honesty in love and art, to his more recent open-weave, semi-expressionist explorations of the roots of consciousness, the muscle tone of Kinsella’s poetry has always been in perfect order.
I love Heaney’s observations about the poem “Interlude”, published in a collection in 1960 (so, early Kinsella). In “Interlude” comes the following lines:
Love’s doubts enrich my words; I stroke them out.
To each felicity, once. He must progress
Who fabricates a path, though all about
Death, Woman, Spring, repeat their first success.
Heaney writes:
So does he stroke out the words or does he stroke out the doubts? If he strokes out the doubts and keeps the enriched words, there is no honesty either in the words or in the love. If he strokes out the words, there is no honest acknowledgement that love’s doubts are the corollary of love’s enrichments. It is a bind from which he would not be released because of an imposed discipline of understanding. The voice of that discipline is the true voice of Kinsella’s muse; in the contexts of sexual and domestic love, biological and spiritual survival physical and psychological exhaustions and renewals – all of which Kinsella takes for granted as what he calls simply “the ordeal” – this muse speaks the same command over and over again throughout Kinsella’s poetry. Deeper, she says. Further. Don’t repose in the first resolution of your predicament. That resolution too is a predicament. What more? ‘Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.’ Forge on. Fabricate the path.
Now that’s how to read a poem.
Two more quotes before we get to the poem I have chosen today. (In case I haven’t said it recently: These books of poetry I am in now – part of my Daily Book Excerpt project that has been going on for years – are compilations, with poems chosen for inclusion. One of my “rules” for this Daily Excerpt is that I choose a poem actually included in the compilation, since the overriding purpose of this project is the books on the shelves and what they contain – so if a poem I love by one of these poets is NOT included in said compilation, then I will not use it as the excerpt. I enjoy limitations with a project as vast as this.)
Michael Schmidt again, on Thomas Kinsella:
Kinsella describes a Dual Tradition in Irish literature, attempting to bring back fully into play the Irish linguistic tradition and the poets of Ireland neglected during the centuries of English rule. Austin Clarke is a linchpin in his argument. It is not a nationalist argument but something more fundamental, about recoveries of voice and resource that will speak more deeply to Irish writers than the off-the-peg forms and strategies of international modernism, postmodernism and anti-modernism. The liberating resources are not only Irish. Pound teaches us to discern our own voice through the static of convention, just as Proust helps us to uncover the lineaments of our own biographies as he traces the miasmic ebb and flow of Marcel’s. The task is to recover rather than invent a language, to live rather than exist a life.
A crucial difference. Kinsella has to do with giving Irish culture a shot in the arm, of confidence, of memory, of ownership. He looks back, but he looks around him as well. I love his stuff. I love the political stuff, and I love the personal, too.
And finally, Heaney again:
[Kinsella] has ingested loss – of a literature in the Irish language, of a political vision in post-independence Ireland, of all that time robs from the original resources of the individual psyche – and has remembered it in an art that has the effect of restitution. The place of waste, the place of renewal and the place of writing have become coterminous within his poetry … Kinsella is, in fact, the representative Irish poet in that his career manifests the oath-bound unrewarded plight of the comitatus in Yeats’s black tower. In his work, we can watch the ancient correspondence between the nation’s possibilities and the imaginations of its poet – represented originally by the Milesian bard Amergin – discover itself again in a modern drama of self-knowledge and self-testing.
If you are interested in poetry, I hope all of these serious political words will not put you off Thomas Kinsella. Just remember it is nearly impossible for an Irish writer to NOT be political. Even being a-political is a political statement. Much of his work is completely personal, there are poems about standing around the death-bed of a father, of looking at portraits of ancestors on a wall, of a hen laying an egg. He has a great eye, and great facility with language and rhythm.
His observations in the poem below (the fist in the lap, the bottle under the apron) are so human, almost photographic: you can SEE this woman. It’s a great example of the personal being automatically political. The gap between generations writ large. The abyss between memory and knowledge. How to bridge the gap? It seems impossible. And I love the first sentence. A poet, a writer, a man with a voice, stopping it in his throat, in the face of the enormous past.
Ancestor
I was going to say something,
and stopped. Her profile against the curtains
was old, and dark like a hunting bird’s.
It was the way she perched on the high stool,
staring into herself, with one fist
gripping the side of the barrier around her desk
— or her head held by something, from inside.
And not caring for anything around her
or anyone there by the shelves.
I caught a faint smell, musky and queer.
I may have made some sound – she stopped rocking
and pressed her fist in her lap; then she stood up
and shut down the lid of the desk, and turned the key.
She shoved a small bottle under her apron
and came toward me, darkening the passageway.
Ancestor … among sweet- and fruit-boxes.
Her black heart …
Was that a sigh?
— brushing by me in the shadows,
with her heaped aprons, through the red hangings
to the scullery, and down to the back room.
Interesting, Sheila. I recently borrowed “Finders Keepers” from the library (can’t remember why–I think I just wanted something by Heaney) but haven’t started it yet. Now that I know more about Kinsella, I really want to dive into it.
Wonderful stuff—you make me ashamed for not knowing more Kinsella, though I did know the poem you ended on, being that it is one of the few poems of his included in my copy of the New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (which he edited, and translated). Should say, though, that I had merely READ it—your comments caused me to appreciate the poem far more deeply, and I shall seek out more Kinsella.
Heaney’s comments were wonderful as well…Though the idea of the “ancient correspondence between the nation’s possibilities and the imaginations of its poet” somehow filled me with sadness. Hard to imagine that history has been kind in any way to the unfettered Celtic imagination. And while the diaspora of the fanatic-hearted has created a nearly effective counterweight to the heft and bulk of the Romano-British model, at the end of the that contemplation there is but…What? Bitterness? Regret? Or is it more like the nagging feeling of a thing not finished? This is what I felt, too, tonight, re-reading the last lines of this poem:
“Ancestor … among sweet- and fruit-boxes.
Her black heart …
Was that a sigh?
– brushing by me in the shadows”
And I think, yes, it was a sigh.
Kate – what a funny coincidence! My father gave me Finders Keepers. It’s wonderful! I love his essays.
Nick – thanks so much for the nice comment. I really need to get that Oxford Book of Irish Verse!!
I like your phrase: “unfettered Irish imagination”. The rupturing of that connection, that correspondence, is where the 20th century Irish literature, where they have dominated, comes from. It is very sad, but it is certainly been a wellspring of genius.
That ancestor! Doesn’t she just come alive? What could she say to him, and he to her? Is the connection severed for good?
God, he’s so good. Another poem of his that I am in love with is called A Lady of Quality. Do you know it? One of her personal domestic poems. I haven’t been able to find it online – but it’s one of my favorites of his.
Yeah, I feel that, that rupturing. I have some rather odd ideas about racial memory, I suppose, but I think somehow we carry the dust of that idea—different way of perceiving, relating—about with us, in our chromosomes, our psyches, our imaginations.
As for what she would say, I think she would ache for the sweetness of her life’s convulsing—I think she would say that no loss can be as acute—and I think he would not listen, because he is constitutionally unable to.
I tried looking for the poem, too—no luck, unfortunately…Apparently, it was originally titled Dusk Music, and it appeared in Another September, which is available at one of the UMich libraries here in Annn Arbor, but unfortunately, not electronically. However, I placed a hold on the book, and my wife will pick it up Monday—and I’ll post it…
//I think somehow we carry the dust of that idea—different way of perceiving, relating—about with us, in our chromosomes, our psyches, our imaginations.//
Well, that’s the whole thrust behind much of Irish literature in the 20th century, starting with the Gaelic League and all the rest. I suppose lots of former colonized countries, etc., have this thrust… as a matter of fact I know they do, but I don’t care so much about them, except in an abstract way. I can’t speak to their experience in a direct way. My connection to the Irish is visceral, because of my background and my roots, and the sense my father gave his children of our history, our ancestors, and where we came from.
So no, I don’t think your idea about race is “odd” at all. I think it is shared by many, especially artists of these formerly colonized or occupied countries.
Nick – Good to know about Lady of Quality. I imagine it was an early poem, it feels early to me.
This is a wonderful appreciation of Kinsella, and a wonderful blog overall. I think Kinsella is one of the great poets now writing. His Selected Poems and Collected Poems are both available in the US from Wake Forest University Press.
One of the things I like about “Ancestor” is the way it touches on Irish myth without losing its specific location. This is characteristic of Kinsella’s writing. You mentioned “A Lady of Quality,” one of the first poems Kinsella wrote about his then-girlfriend Eleanor (now his wife of over fifty years). They met when he visited her (at the suggestion of a friend) in a hospital where he had tuberculosis.
This is a recent poem of his about their life together. Sorry if it’s a bit long. I love the touches of Irish myth (the dream-vision, the two married crows), the open sexuality, and the tenderness of the last section.
The Familiar
I.
I was on my own, fumbling at the neglect
in my cell, up under the roof
over Baggot Street. Remembering
our last furious farewell
— face to face, studying each other
with a hardness like hate.
Mismatched, under the sign of sickness.
My last thoughts alone.
Her knock at the door:
her face bold on the landing.
‘I brought you a present.’
I lifted her case.
It was light, but I could tell
she was going to stay.
II.
The demons over the door
that had watched over me
and my solitary shortcomings
looked down upon us
entering together
with our animal thoughts.
III.
Muse on my mattress
with eyes bare
combing her fingers
down through my hair
Her things on the floor
a sigh of disorder
box of her body
in an oxtail odour
Bending above me
with busy neck
and loose locks
my mind black.
IV.
In my night sweat she was everywhere,
feeding: Come flesh. Come bones.
And I beat on the body of Love, saying:
Tomorrow. You’ll see.
Fire’s red flames fading
in a dark room.
Her voice whispering in my ear: It is all
right. It is all right.
V.
I rose with need in the small hours
and felt my way along the landing
to empty my system beside the sink.
The moon bright
on the three graces above the tank.
The youngest, chosen, stripped and ready.
Her older sister nude beside her,
settling her hair. Their matron mother
to one side, holding the mirror.
I felt my way back afterwards
along the landing, into my place.
Our legs locked in friendship.
VI.
I was searching for the lost well-head,
among thick fruits, under leather leaves,
when I beheld a shaft of light
slanting down golden
glistening with seeds,
in a glade humming with pleasure.
On a field or:
a decorative flicker.
A nymph advancing,
spurning the blades of grass with little tough feet;
picking the pale-stemmed blossoms in her path;
laying them in the crook of her arm and against her cheek;
her tongue, coral pink, lingering among them;
her hair falling all over them,
tangled with the remains of the morning’s floral crown.
Her floral tresses
lifted and swayed,
whispering: Come.
VII.
I was downstairs at first light,
looking out through the frost on the window
at the hill opposite and the sheets of frost
scattered down among the rocks.
The cat back in the kitchen.
Folded on herself. Torn and watchful.
*
A chilled grapefruit
–thin-skinned, with that little gloss.
I took a mouthful, looking up along the edge of the wood
at the two hooded crows high in the cold
talking to each other,
flying up toward the tundra, beyond the waterfall.
*
I sliced the tomatoes in thin discs
in damp sequence into their dish;
scalded the kettle; made the tea,
and rang the little brazen bell.
And saved the toast.
Arranged the pieces
in slight disorder around the basket.
Fixed our places, one with the fruit
and one with the plate of sharp cheese.
*
And stood in my dressing gown
with arms extended
over the sweetness of the sacrifice.
Her face showed in the door.
Her voice responded:
‘You are very good. You always made it nice.’
David – first of all, thank you for the nice comment on my site.
Second of all: my God, what a poem! I did not know the background to A Lady of Quality, and I thank you so much for that context. And that poem The Familiar is a stunner, an amazing and deep portrait of marriage and relationship. Beautiful. Thanks for that.
Sheila,
Glad you liked “The Familiar.” I’d been reading Kinsella’s work for twenty years, and it still blew me away.
A couple of typos/corrections:
1) My sentence should read “They met when he visited her (at the suggestion of a friend) in a hospital where she had tuberculosis.”
2) Sections II and II of the poem should not have periods at the end.
I’m really enjoying the other entries in your blog, and not just on Irish poetry.
David
David, I really loved that poem (The Familiar. This is obviously a poet of uncommon charm.
Sheila, her at last is A Lady of Quality:
In hospital where windows meet
With sunlight in a pleasing feat
Of airy architecture
My love has sweets and grapes to eat,
The air is like a laundered sheet,
The world’s a varnished picture.
Books and flowers at her head
Make living-quarteres of the bed
And give a certain style
To our pillow chat, the nonsense said
To bless the room from present dread
Just for a brittle while.
For obvious reasons we ignore
The leaping season out-of-door,
Light lively as a ferret,
Woodland walks, a crocused shore,
The transcendental birds that soar
And tumble in high spirit.
While under this hygienic ceiling
Where my love lies down for healing
Tiny terrors grow,
Reflected in a look, revealing
That her care is spent concealing
What, perhaps, I know:
The ever-present crack in time
Forever sundering the lime—
Paths and the fragrant fountains,
Photographed last summer, from
The unknown memory we climb
To find in this years mountains.
‘Ended and done with’ never ceases,
Constantly the heart releases
Wild geese to the past.
Look, how they circle the poignant places,
Falling to sorrow’s fowling-pieces
With soft plumage aghast.
We may regret, and must abide.
Frief, the hunter’s, fatal stride
Among the darkening hearts
Has gone too long on either side,
Our trophied love must now divide
Into its separate parts
And you go down with womankind
Who in her beauty has combined
And focused human hungers,
With country ladies who could wind
A nation’s love-affair with mind
Around their little fingers,
And I communicate again
Recovered order to my pen
To find a further answer
As, having looked all night in vain,
A weary prince will sigh and then
Take a familiar dancer.
Now the window’s turning dark
And ragged rooks cross the Park
Mix with the branches; sundry
Clocks about the building mark
The hour; a train to Southward, hark!
Laments in distant country
This parting to accompany.
Our fingertips together lie
Upon the counterpane.
It will be hard, it seems, and I
Would wish my heart to justify
What qualities remain.
I like this poem very much. Unusual to see poems written aabccb; I always associate that with Swinburne. It took a few days to get this old book from the Umich library. The rest of it (Another September) is quite good, as well—it is a slim little binder-worn volume, which was, 30 or 40 years ago lime-green, I think, but has ebbed to a dingy mossy variant. 28 poems, 40-some pages. It has been marked about, in pencil, by what appears to be at least two different hands. Unobtrusively, in a way that makes the experience of reading feel more communal. It is everything a poetry book should be.
Thank you again for giving me Kinsella.
Nick – I love how you describe the book. A real lived-in and experienced book.