The End of my Blog (for a while)

I have absolutely loved doing this blog as part of my research, but now it is time to concentrate on writing my research paper.  I have loved reading Enniss's and Haughton's books about Mahon's life, where he has travelled and followed his journey and also Derek's poems which I think are wonderful. So I would like to continue my research and do my dissertation in 2017 on Mahon's work, looking into his poetry in more depth.  But in the meantime I would like to dedicate this blog to my grandmother Mary (Minnie) Kerr nee Mahon and to her wonderful sister - Aunt Cissy Mahon, who was so proud of Derek's achievements.

So for you both ... xxx

Remix Video of Derek Mahon's poem "Everything is Going to be Alright". All rights go to the owners of the videos and music. Song: "Never Gonna Break My Faith" - Aretha Franklin featuring Mary J. Blige and The Boys Choir of Harlem, Published on 10th December 2014.

"Everything is Going to be Alright"

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.

Copyright Edgar Rodriguez

GRANDFATHER by Derek Mahon

GRANDFATHER by Derek Mahon, born Belfast 1941

They brought him in on a stretcher from the world,
Wounded but humorous; and he soon recovered.
Boiler-rooms, row upon row of gantries rolled
Away to reveal the landscape of a childhood
Only he can recapture. Even on cold
Mornings he is up at six with a block of wood
Or a box of nails, discreetly up to no good
Or banging round the house like a four-year-old —

Never there when you call. But after dark
You hear his great boots thumping in the hall
And in he comes, as cute as they come. Each night
His shrewd eyes bolt the door and set the clock
Against the future, then his light goes out.
Nothing escapes him; he escapes us all.


This poem was written by Mahon about his Grandfather who worked on Titanic as a boilermaker at Belfast Shipyard.

This is even more interesting to me as I thought this might have been my own Great Grandfather who worked on Titanic, but apparently it was his grandfather on his mother's side - Henry Harrison.  

After the Titanic - You Tube Clip

Found this clip on You Tube - After the Titanic by Mahon ... hope you enjoy it!!!

Favourite Poems

During the week I emailed a colleague of Derek's from a College in London.  Today I have also emailed Professor Edna Longley who is Professor Emerita from Queen's University, Belfast.  She is an influential critic, writing on Modern British and Irish poetry.  She is also a powerful voice in contemporary Irish culture.  Her husband is the Irish poet - Michael Longley who has been a great friend of Mahon's from their Trinity days.

I just simply asked them what their favourite poem would be from Mahon's work, fingers crossed I get a reply. 

 

Derek Mahon and Michael Longley outside Queen's University, Belfast

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Influenced by Beckett, Auden and Yeats ...

Just some of Mahon's published works ...

Life on Earth - Shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize - 2009

In 2009, Life on Earth (2008) by Mahon was shortlisted by The Griffin Trust - For Excellence in Poetry for the Griffin Poetry Prize.  

Summary of Life on Earth ...

Life on Earth (2008) collects and adds to works which have appeared recently in limited editions. It opens with celebrations of notable exemplars: Coleridge, Chekhov, the novelist Brian Moore. This echo poetry extends to ‘Art Notes’ on Hopper, de Staël and others, followed by the eco-poetry of the ‘Homage to Gaia’ sequence on environmental themes. A substantial and positive volume distinguished by its light touch, Life on Earth is the work of a supreme artist.

The Judges' Citation ...

“Formal grace, uncluttered diction, and sprightliness of movement lend Derek Mahon’s new poems a musicality and memorability which is intensified by their visionary gaze and their poignant yearning for unspoiled and unsoiled places: ‘blue skies, /clear water, scattered light’. His light-filled work celebrates the sun’s life-sustaining powers; yet he also fears the heat of the sun in the context of global warming: ‘Sea levels rising annually, /glaciers sliding fast, /species extinct …’ Mahon is drawn to the lives, worlds and work of other artists; a vivid bio-poem, retracing Coleridge’s life, and an atmospheric poem evoking the post-war Belfast of the novelist Brian Moore are set alongside elegant versions of Ovid [the desolate 'Ariadne on Naxos'] and Ibsen [the haunting and unsettling 'The Lady from the Sea']. Visual art features prominently too: a sequence of ‘Art Notes’ re-creates the paintings of Edward Hopper, Howard Hodgkin, Renÿ Magritte and others with meticulously-crafted mastery. An outstanding collection from one of Ireland’s most acclaimed poets.”

In 2009 it won the Irish Times Poetry Now Award.  

This research is very exciting as it brings together again authors and poets that we have already studied.

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen - Screenplay

In 1986/87, The Death of the Heart, Elizabeth Bowen's best known book was made into a Screenplay by Derek Mahon.

It was produced by Peter Hammond and starred Nigel Harvers as Thomas Quayne and Patricia Hodge as Anna Quayne.

The actual screenplay is held by Boston College, John J Burns Library, Achieves and Manuscripts.

This information is really exciting as we are studying Elizabeth Bowen's novel The Last September. Derek has reviewed Elizabeth Bowen's other work and has also written a poem about her.

An Interview in February 2014

I found this documentary on Youtube made by Rebecca Halliday.  It shows Derek Mahon retracing his steps from childhood along Salisbury Avenue on the Antrim Road to his days at the The Royal Belfast Academical Institute in Belfast.  He then travels to Trinity College, to relive his undergraduate days and then to London, where he lived for fifteen years.  Finally Derek travels to 45 Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, where he was very content for many years, before finally making Kinsale his home at The Grove.

It is a wonderful documentary discussing his influences such as Coleridge, where Derek visits where Coleridge lived in London, as well as Esra Pound, who lived at 16 Kensington Church Walk, a short distance from Derek's Observatory Gardens home in Kensington.

Red Sails - Derek Mahon

After cancelling my Amazon Prime this morning £79 for a year, I then decide to buy this new book of essays and memoir, published in October last year!  The Irish Studies Library in Armagh did have this book and I took quite a few pictures of it with my iPhone, but there is nothing like actually reading a book (a paperback rather than on a screen) ...

After the Titanic A Life of Derek Mahon

I have finished reading this book and it gave a wonderful insight into the life and works of Derek Mahon and with quite a few surprises along the way.  He has written a poem about Elizabeth Bowen and that is one of the next books we are reading The Last September, so I will put the poem up on one of my next posts.

I am off to order Red Sails, a new book of essays and memoir published in October 2014 by Gallery Press.

The Poetry of Derek Mahon

Now for the heavy stuff ...

After collecting quite a lot of research on Derek Mahon and finishing the book After the Titanic A Life of Derek Mahon, I am going to start reading through quite a lot of his poetry.  I have read quite a few already, but Hugh Haughton's book The Poetry of Derek Mahon arrived a few weeks ago, so here goes ...

So stand by for some wonderful poems to be posted ...

Everything is going to be all right.

 

 

 

This poem just says it all ...

A response from Kinsale ...

I had received - a postcard from Derek Mahon from Kinsale quite a few weeks back, which I was absolutely delighted to receive - wishing me good luck with my Research Project and letting me know that his biographer had just released a book at the end of last year - 2014.  Unfortunately I have tried to upload this quite a few times without success, hopefully this time ...

Kinsale, Co Cork - with its brightly coloured buildings, I am hoping to visit over Easter.

After the Titanic A Life of Derek Mahon

After the Titanic A Life of Derek Mahon by Stephen Enniss arrived today and it makes an amazing read.  Stephen Enniss is a distinguished librarian and archivist who goes through the 'Battlefield of Mahon's life in this biography', according to McCarthy.  He believes that 'Enniss is uniquely placed to check through the wreckage of most Irish poetry.'

According to McCarthy 'Derek Mahon is a genius of a poet. Instinctively lyrical like his true soul-mates Van Morrison and Louis MacNeice, his politics is unexpectedly Irish. One would have thought that like our number one golfer, Rory, he would feel more British than Irish, but he has deflected both the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and an OBE from Tony Blair’s government. “Northern Ireland is sick unto death, perhaps because at a deep level it knows it shouldn’t exist,” he said to Paul Durcan in a very early Magill interview, and in preparation for an American reading, he warned his publisher that he was not to be introduced as an Ulster poet but ‘Irish, please.’  (Cited in http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsfilmtv/books/life-of-poet-is-work-in-progress-290644.html.  Accessed 11th February 2015).

A Family Connection

My grandmother Mary Mahon and Derek's father Norman Mahon were brother and sister.  Today I have written a letter to Derek to see if my mother (who is Derek's cousin) and I could travel to his home in Kinsale to meet with him to discuss my research project that I intend to write on his life and works.  My mother and her family have met up with Derek at his home in Kinsale on a few occasions when they head down to the Jazz Festival in Cork.

An Short Introduction to Derek Mahon - Poet

Welcome to my Blog about the life and works of Derek Mahon.

Derek Mahon was born in Belfast in 1941 and his poem 'A Disused Shed in Co, Wexford', from his collection of poems The Snow Party, has been described as the single most beautiful poem written by an Irish poet since the death of Yeats.

The Actor Stephen Rea's Favourite Poem 'A disused shed in County Wexford'

The actor - Stephen Rea who reads his favourite poem
'A disused shed in County Wexford' by Derek Mahon

 

 

Reading the Future

"Who are the Irish writers working today who will be read in one hundred year's time?" 

That was the question that RTE put to a panel of scholars, editors and others. The result was a list of writers, each of whom will have a dialogue with Mike Murphy for a television and radio series "reading the future". This work includes an incisive introduction by Declan Kiberd, consulting editor to the RTE series and chairman of the selection panel. There will also be biographical notes on each writer and a chronology of Irish literature covering the period in which the selected writers have been working. The result is an insight into the lives and creative minds of 12 great writers such as Derek Mahon; John Banville; Marina Carr; Brian Friel; Seamus Heaney; Thomas Kinsella; Michael Longley; John McGahern; Tom Murphy; Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill; Edna O'Brien; and William Trevor.

In 2000 Mike Murphy published 'Reading the Future' and accordingly Murphy has concurred that 'Mahon has produced a substantial body of literary criticism and journalism, and he is a distinguished translator and adapter of poetry and plays'.  To discuss his work Murphy was joined by the poet Vona Groarke, critic Hugh Haughton and poet and lecturer Gerald Dawe. When asked 'Can you place Mahon as a writer at the beginning of the twenty-first century?', Haughton argued that 'its always hard to place people.  Derek is wonderful about place and about the problem of historical placing.  He is one of the writers who has changed the course of Irish poetry.  He has opened up a new subject matter, written a new kind of poem, in touch with modernity in a way Irish poetry wasn't when he began writing in the sixties.  He is a poet who is always conscious of wider cultural forces'.