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\nSave your breath,
\nPoem maker
\nKeep it under wraps
\nIn the tall tree of yourself
\n— Michael Davitt<\/big><\/p>\n
Both quotes above are English translations of the original Irish language versions, just to be clear. <\/p>\n
Poet Michael Davitt, born (on this day) in Cork, didn’t grow up speaking Irish at home. He learned it at school, which he writes about eloquently in his poem “3AG”. Munster Irish! His academic background in the Irish language gave him a different perspective than a person who grew up bilingual, hearing Irish spoken in the home, etc. Irish was a language to be learned and conquered. <\/p>\n
Davitt (who sadly passed away far too young in 2005) was an Irish language poet. Unless you speak the language, you must content yourself with reading his work in translation. Luckily, some great contemporary Irish poets have done wonderful translations of his stuff (Paul Muldoon – my post about him here<\/a>, M\u00edche\u00e1l \u00d3 hAirtn\u00e9ide – my post about him here<\/a>, and others), but Davitt’s work is meant to be read in the Irish. Something is always lost in translation. <\/p>\n To him, Irish was not<\/em> a rural language. This set him apart from those who connected the Irish language with a pre-Industrial-Revolution society. He used the Irish language for contemporary subjects. He started publishing poetry in the 70s, when a lot of Irish language poets cropped up – a reclamation in a time of strife. Davitt was against “cultural McDonaldisation”, yet he disagreed with the thought that the Irish language should be isolated, or even COULD isolate those who spoke it. To him, Irish was not a “dead” language at all. Davitt did things with Irish that other more traditional writers wouldn’t. He wrote a poem for Bobby Sands. He wrote a heartbreaking poem about September 11, 2001. <\/p>\n Davitt founded a magazine – Innti<\/em> – dedicated to Irish language poets (including Nuala N\u00ed Dhomhnaill, whom I saw read once at the The Ireland House in New York City<\/a>: an unforgettable night). He was also a producer\/director at RT\u00c9. A vibrant man and also a huge intellect, he died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2005. He was only 55 years old. <\/p>\n First, I’ll post his poem Ciorrú Bóthair (Shortening the Road), which was translated by Irish author Philip Casey. I love that Davitt incorporates English words in his Irish, which gives the impression that ENGLISH is the foreign tongue here, the tongue that “doesn’t fit”. Of course I can’t read it, but I get excited when I recognize words. My sisters and I were driving around the outskirts of \u00c1th Cliath (ie: Dublin), reading the dual-language street signs as we whizzed by them. We were lost. Jean sighed, “Well as long as we’re headed an lár<\/i> …” (“city center”, “downtown”). She said it so casually. We still laugh about that. And we still say “let’s meet up an lár<\/em>“. <\/p>\n More after the jump: <\/p>\n \n<\/p>\n \n <\/p>\n Shortening the Road<\/big><\/p>\n He told me he had spent Another sleet-shower; He had been spending a few days That lit a spark, exploding into Irish A Summer College in Ballingeary, ‘It must be a great job in the summertime?’ But he hated Christmas, He hadn’t slept for a week, East across the Shannon through squally showers I stopped at Baggot Street bridge. As he walked away into the fog Next, is his 1982 poem \u00d3 Mo Bheirt Phailist\u00edneach (O My Two Palestinians), a timeless work and very relevant today. A reminder that Ireland was colonized longer than any other country. Ireland has muscle-memory of colonization, which gives them a highly developed awareness of oppression. English rule came to Ireland in the 11th century, when the country was handed over with a flick of the pen. The centuries following were marked by rebellions and revolutions, followed by centuries of oppression: the great hunger, the destruction of culture, arts, language. I was going to say “it’s weird that people forget this”, but honestly I don’t think they even knew in the first place. <\/p>\n O My Two Palestinians<\/big><\/p>\n (18\/9\/82, having watched a news report<\/p>\n on the massacre of Palestinians in Beirut )<\/p>\n I pushed open the door blankets kicked off her nightgown tossed above her buttocks her chicken brain retched on the pillow, liver-soiled sheets, “What is important is to continue believing in the Irish language as a vibrant creative power while it continues to be marginalised in the process of cultural McDonaldisation.” — Michael Davitt<\/big><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Save your breath, Poem maker Keep it under wraps In the tall tree of yourself — Michael Davitt Both quotes above are English translations of the original Irish language versions, just to be clear. Poet Michael Davitt, born (on this … Continue reading
\nHis life in horticulture,
\nHad always worked in the open air;
\nThat was clear about the stranger
\nFrom his black nails and the smell of cut grass
\nOff his southern English.<\/p>\n
\nThen the sun lit up
\nThe road before us through Oranmore
\nEast to Ballinasloe
\nAnd the car was a glasshouse
\nWarming to his gardening lore.<\/p>\n
\nWith relatives west of Spiddal:
\n‘You have Irish then, I suppose?’
\n‘Not Irish, but Munster Irish … !’
\nA Muskerry man definitely, I thought; but no:
\n‘A Corkman out of the heart of Cork.’<\/p>\n
\nAnd we combed through our backgrounds
\nAnd upbringings,
\nAnd God it’s a small world
\nThat we both could have travelled
\nThe same backroads of dialect:<\/p>\n
\nThe Christian Brothers’ Grammar,
\nThe pubs of the Dingle Peninsula,
\nThen the compromise and watering down
\nOf five or six years
\nIn the city of Dublin.<\/p>\n
\n‘Yes indeed, but I prefer the Spring,
\nA time of growth, it’s reassuring,
\nAnd there are miracles of colour in Autumn
\nThat would keep a man off the booze …’
\nThe spark had left his voice.<\/p>\n
\nAs would any single exile
\nReaching forty-three
\nLoafing in the deluded paradise of the pub.
\n‘They’re closing the glasshouses down …
\nI’m a year and a half on the dole … ‘<\/p>\n
\nA polluted stream was meandering
\nThrough his brain, he had nearly drowned,
\nHe was running from the pain again
\nGoing back to Camden Town
\nWhere a lonely widow had a small pub of her own.<\/p>\n
\nUnder the arches of fingery trees,
\nWhat had become an exchange of memories
\nHad become an alcoholic’s confession:
\nI the reluctant confessor
\nUnder the spell of the windscreen wipers.<\/p>\n
\nHe said I’d given him hope,
\nThat he would look for a job
\nIn the north of the county,
\nThat he’d love to be as steady as me,
\nThat he’d see me again, please God, someday.<\/p>\n
\nI imagined meeting the stranger again
\nOn the verge of a foreign motorway
\nBut I was the hitch-hiker
\nAnd he the confessor –
\nAs steady as me,
\nAs steady as me.<\/p>\n
\nenough to let light from the landing
\non them:<\/p>\n
\nthey lay askew
\nas they had fallen:<\/p>\n
\nblood on her lace knickers,
\nfrom a gap in the back of her head<\/p>\n
\nintestines slithered from his belly
\nlike seaweed off a rock.<\/p>\n
\none raised bloodsmeared hand.
\nO my two Palestinians rotting in the central heat.<\/p>\n