{"id":30561,"date":"2010-12-02T07:27:45","date_gmt":"2010-12-02T12:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=30561"},"modified":"2020-11-16T09:22:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T14:22:02","slug":"the-penguin-book-of-contemporary-irish-poetry-michael-davitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=30561","title":{"rendered":"The Books: The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry<\/i>: Michael Davitt"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Daily Book Excerpt: Poetry<\/p>\n

Next book on the shelf is The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, edited by Peter Fallon & Derek Mahon. <\/p>\n

\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\nMichael Davitt, a Cork man by birth, didn’t grow up speaking Irish at home. He learned it at school. Munster Irish! His academic background in Irish gives him a different perspective on it than one who grew up fully immersed, hearing it speaking in the home, etc. It was a language to be learned and conquered – which he did. Michael Davitt (who sadly passed away far too young in 2005) was an Irish language poet. You must read his work in translation. Some of the great contemporary Irish poets have done wonderful translations of his stuff (Muldoon, Michael Hartnett – my post about him here<\/a>, and others), but his work is meant to be read in the Irish. Something is always lost in translation. Because I don’t know the language, I can’t speak to what he did<\/i> with the language, but others can and do. He used the language differently. To him, it was not a purely rural language. He took on contemporary and urban subjects. He started writing and publishing poetry in the 70s, when a lot of Irish language poets started cropping up – a way to reclaim and reexamine their history in a time of particular strife. The Irish language had been stomped out. These poets took it off the shelf. Michael Davitt was against “cultural McDonaldisation”, yet he also completely disagreed with the thought that the Irish language should be isolated, or could isolate those who spoke it. It was not a dead language, not at all. Davitt was loose with his Irish, he did things with it that other more traditional writers wouldn’t, he treated it like a living language, as opposed to a museum piece not to be touched. <\/p>\n

Davitt founded a magazine and was also a television producer and director at RT\u00c9. A vibrant man (just look at that picture!), and also a huge intellect, he died suddenly and unexpectedly. His work comes out with translations attached on facing pages, but all you need to do is scan what it looks like in Irish and you can see how beautiful it is. He was a master. Those who thought of the Irish language as limited, isolated, or strictly rural, were surprised at how vital it became, through poets like Davitt. <\/p>\n

I’ll post his poem Ciorrú Bóthair (Shortening the Road). First in Irish, then with the translation by Irish author Philip Casey below it. One of the tensions in his work was dealing with modern subjects in the Irish language, which had rarely been done before in serious literary circles. Here, you can see him address some of that tension directly. Also, he incorporates English words in his Irish – which gives the humorous (if you’re Irish, anyway) impression that ENGLISH is the foreign tongue, the tongue that “doesn’t fit”, that “sounds weird”. A nice subversion there. Subtly done. And I can’t help but feel that so much is (as always) lost in translation. I do get excited, though, when I recognize words. As my sister Jean said as we drove lost around the outskirts of \u00c1th Cliath (ie: Dublin), reading the dual-language street signs as we whizzed by them, “Well as long as we’re headed an lár<\/i> …” She said it so casually, so over it. We still laugh about that. Yes, Jean, we are headed an lár<\/em>. Just follow the signs to an lár<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Ciorrú Bóthair<\/big><\/p>\n

Dúirt sé liom gur dhuine é
\nA bhí ag plé le diantalmhaíocht,
\nA d’oibrigh riamh faoin spéir;
\nBhí an chuma sin ar an stróinséir
\nÓ dhubh a iongan is ó bholadh an fhéir ghearrtha
\nAr a Bhéarla deisceartach.<\/p>\n

Cith eile flichshneachta;
\nAnsin do las an ghrian
\nAn bóthar romhainn trí an Uarán Mór
\nSoir go Béal Átha na Sluaighe
\nIs bhí an carr ina tigín gloine
\nAr tinneall lena scéalta garraíodóireachta.<\/p>\n

Bhí roinnt leathanta caite aige
\nLa gaolta taobh thiar den Spidéal:
\n‘Tá Gaelige agat, mar sin?’
\n‘Níl ná Gaeilge acg Gaolainn…’
\nMúscraíoch siúrálta, mheasas; ach níorbh ea,
\n‘Corcaíoch ó lár Chorcaí amach.’<\/p>\n

Ghin san splanc; phléase comhrá Gaeilge
\nGur chíoramar dúchas
\nIs tabhairt suas a chéile,
\nIs a Ghia nach cúng í Éire
\nGo raibh na bóithríní céanna canúna
\nCurtha dínn araon:<\/p>\n

Coláiste Samhraidh i mBéal Átha an Ghaorthaigh,
\nGraiméar na mBráithre Críostaí,
\nTithe tábhairne Chorca Dhuibhne,
\nIs an caolú, ansin, an géilleadh,
\nToradh cúig nó sé de bhlianta
\nI gcathair Bhaile Átha Cliath.<\/p>\n

‘Caithfidh gur breá an jab sa tsamhradh é?’
\n‘Sea mhuis ach b’fhearr liom féin an tEarrach,
\nTráth fáis, tá misniú ann,
\nAgus tá míorúiltí datha sa bhFómhar
\nA choimeádfadh duine ón ól…’
\nD’éalaigh an splanc as a ghlór.<\/p>\n

Ach bhí an ghráin aige ar an Nollaig,
\nMar a bhí ag gach deoraí singil
\nTrí bliana is dhá scór ag déanamh
\nA bhuilín i bparthas cleasach an tí óil.
\n‘A bhfuil de thithe gloine á ndúnadh síos…
\nTáim bliain go leith díomhaoin …’<\/p>\n

Níor chodail sé néal le seachtain,
\nBhí sruthán truaillithe ag caismirneach
\nTrína cheann, ba dhóbair dó bá.
\nBhí air teitheadh arís ón bpéin
\nIs filleadh ar Chamden Town,
\nBhí pub<\/i> beag ag baintreach uaigneach ann.<\/p>\n

Thai Sionainn soir trí scrabhanna
\nFaoi áirsí na gcrann méarach,
\nDár gcaidreamh comhchuimhní
\nDhein faoistin alcólaigh:
\nMise im choinfeasóir drogallach
\nFaoi gheasa na gcuimleoirí.<\/p>\n

Stopas ag droichead Shráid Bhagóid.
\nDúirt sé gur thugas uchtach dó,
\nGo lorgódh sé jab i dtuaisceart an chontae,
\nGo mba bhreá leis a bheith
\nChomh socair liom féin,
\nGo bhfeicfeadh sé arís mé, le cúnamh Dé.<\/p>\n

Ar imeacht uaim sa cheobhrán dó
\nTaibhríodh dom athchaidreamh leis an stróinséir
\nAr imeall mórbhealaigh san imigéin:
\nAch go mba mise fear na hordóige
\nIs go mb’eisean an coinfeasóir –
\nÉ chomh socair liom féin,
\nChomh socair liom féin.<\/p>\n

Shortening the Road<\/big><\/p>\n

He told me he had spent
\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

Another sleet-shower;
\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

He had been spending a few days
\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

That lit a spark, exploding into Irish
\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

A Summer College in Ballingeary,
\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

‘It must be a great job in the summertime?’
\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

But he hated Christmas,
\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

He hadn’t slept for a week,
\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

East across the Shannon through squally showers
\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

I stopped at Baggot Street bridge.
\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

As he walked away into the fog
\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