One of the best things about traveling by car through the Irish countryside is listening to the local radio - I find I can learn so much about a country by what they choose to cover on the radio. The past week of Irish radio has been a delight -- especially the bits when they talk of Irish poets and writers and play old audio of them reading their work aloud. We had a lovely day driving from Galway to Limerick yesterday and heard a two hour public radio discussion of Patrick Kavanagh, his poetry, his politics (he detested snobby scholars studying James Joyce at Trinity College) and his band of poet friends.
While walking through Limerick today, I happened upon an excellent volume of Kavanagh's poetry, No Earthly Estate with a foreward and analysis of a few poems by Tom Stack. Whilst curled up next to the fireplace in our gorgeous Georgian hotel a stone's throw from a stunning castle, I' discovered this gem that I loved, then disliked, then loved again:
Epic
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided: who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting 'Damn your soul'
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel --
'Here is the march along these iron stones'
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind
He said: I made the Illiad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
I've also picked up Opened Ground, a collection of poems by Seamus Heaney. I know, I know, not an original choice. But when you hear him quoted in pub after pub, on station after station, on public plaque after public plaque, it occurs to you that you'd do well to read the man's work! More on Heaney to come...