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  #1  
Unread 10-03-2020, 10:57 AM
Clive Watkins Clive Watkins is offline
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Default Derek Mahon (1941-2020)

The Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon died yesterday, 2 October. He was born in 1941. In my opinion he is one of the finest poets to have been writing during my lifetime and among the very best of the past one hundred years. He was also a brilliant translator. His obituary at The Irish Times can be found here: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/b...d-78-1.4370324.

A page of tributes from a wide range of poets and writers, also in The Irish Times, can be found here: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/b...ahon-1.4370411.

There is an extended and fascinating documentary about him still available on YouTube, in which he discusses his life and writing, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d52CMXOegyA.

I bought Derek Mahon’s very first gathering of poems, the Belfast Festival pamphlet Twelve Poems, in early 1966, either from the hand of Seamus Heaney or that of Michael Longley: at this distance in time I cannot remember which. Heaney and Longley had come, on separate occasions during that period, to read at the University of Liverpool, where I was in my final undergraduate year. None of the three had yet published a book, though Heaney’s Death of a Naturalist was due out from Faber later in 1966. I went on to buy every one of Derek Mahon’s books as they appeared, and several of the pamphlet collections he brought out between these larger collections as well. There is a now posthumous collection, Washing Up, to come from his publisher, The Gallery Press, at the end of this month. Mine was already on order.

Alas…

Clive Watkins
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  #2  
Unread 10-03-2020, 11:28 AM
Orwn Acra Orwn Acra is online now
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Tractatus

'The world is everything that is the case'
From the fly giving up in the coal-shed
To the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Give blame, praise to the fumbling God
Who hides, shame-facédly, His agéd face;
Whose light retire behind its veil of cloud.

The world, though, is also so much more-
Everything that is the case imaginatively.
Tacitus believed mariners could hear
The sun sinking into the western sea;
And who would question that titanic roar,
The steam rising wherever the edge may be?
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  #3  
Unread 10-03-2020, 02:53 PM
Cally Conan-Davies Cally Conan-Davies is offline
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His way of saying has had a lasting influence on my life.

I love that one, Walter!


Everything is Going to be All Right

How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
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  #4  
Unread 10-04-2020, 07:08 AM
Rory Waterman Rory Waterman is offline
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I agree, Clive. I have some quite strong opinions about him, and might turn them into something one day.
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Unread 10-04-2020, 07:43 AM
Chris O'Carroll Chris O'Carroll is offline
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Mahon's New York Times obit quotes Paul Muldoon calling him "A technician to rival Richard Wilbur, by whom he was deeply influenced both as a poet and translator", and quotes Mahon biographer Stephen Enniss saying, "As a poet, he found consolation in poetic forms, in rhyme, which he once called 'the prelinguistic drumbeat,' and his body of work can be read as an attempt to impose form on the otherwise formlessness of his own life." This is probably not the time or place for picking a quarrel with that latter quotation.
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Unread 10-04-2020, 08:39 AM
John Riley John Riley is offline
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That's interesting, Chris, that there could be an argument about form helping form one's life. Is there a personal dig about his "formless life?" I know nothing about his life. I like these poems quite a bit and do see the effort of a poet trying to find meaning and form in his life. The evident need to question is it worth it, contained in received forms, is when received forms are best used, it seems to me.

I'm sorry for his passing.

Best
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  #7  
Unread 10-07-2020, 04:34 PM
Quincy Lehr's Avatar
Quincy Lehr Quincy Lehr is offline
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Absolutely brilliant poet.
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  #8  
Unread 10-16-2020, 05:20 PM
Cally Conan-Davies Cally Conan-Davies is offline
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David Mason has a beautiful in memoriam poem to Mahon in this week's TLS. It's called 'Antipodes'. I don't know if non-subscribers will be able to see this link?

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/antipodes/

Cally
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