One of the primary reasons I decided upon studying abroad in Ireland was due to my passion for Irish literature. So, this week, when I had the chance to meet Hugo Hamilton AND Michael Longley in the span of three days, I was insanely, INSANELY, excited. What made this even better is the fact that I literally had just read both of their autobiographical works, The Speckled People and Tuppenny Stung, respectively, in the weeks preceding their public readings. Furthermore, I’m currently writing a paper on Michael Longley—so it was so nice to put a face and a voice to the words on the page (although meeting him did also increase my worry about doing justice to the man!)
Hugo Hamilton actually read in one of the lecture theatres at Trinity, and nearly half of my class came—Frances, Tess, Nuala, and I sat together at both the reading and reception, completely in awe of Hamilton. He chose to read another autobiographical piece for us, and at the end, was faced with many questions about how he turns memory into words, the subjectivity of memory, the unreliability of memory, etc.
Longley read last night at the Pavilion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leary) as part of the Poetry NOW festival in Dublin, alongside Heather McHugh, an American poet I had never heard of, but was equally brilliant! At the age of seventy, Longley just released a new volume of poetry, A Hundred Doors, with many of the poems dedicated to his grandchildren. He concluded his reading with a highly directed statement, attesting to the wonderful work of the Poetry NOW festival, and suggesting that no one “tinker with it.” Apparently, there are threats that the festival will be discontinued, which I find highly disappointing. Considering that poetry as a genre is horribly underappreciated, I think festivals like Poetry NOW are completely necessary to making sure that the voices of poets continue to be heard. Because, as Longley put it: “Our subject is civilization.”
I’ll leave you with the two poems that struck me most.
What He Thought by Heather McHugh
We were supposed to do a job in Italy
and, full of our feeling for
ourselves (our sense of being
Poets from America) we went
from Rome to Fano, met
the Mayor, mulled a couple
matters over. The Italian literati seemed
bewildered by the language of America: they asked us
what does “flat drink” mean? and the mysterious
“cheap date” (no explanation lessened
this one’s mystery). Among Italian writers we
could recognize our counterparts: the academic,
the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,
the brazen and the glib. And there was one
administrator (The Conservative), in suit
of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide
with measured pace and uninflected tone
narrated sights and histories
the hired van hauled us past.
Of all he was most politic–
and least poetic– so
it seemed. Our last
few days in Rome
I found a book of poems this
unprepossessing one had written: it was there
in the pensione room (a room he’d recommended)
where it must have been abandoned by
the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom
he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn’t
read Italian either, so I put the book
back in the wardrobe’s dark. We last Americans
were due to leave
tomorrow. For our parting evening then
our host chose something in a family restaurant,
and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,
sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make
our mark, one of us asked
“What’s poetry?
Is it the fruits and vegetables
and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori
or the statue there?” Because I was
the glib one, I identified the answer
instantly, I didn’t have to think– “The truth
is both, it’s both!” I blurted out. But that
was easy. That was easiest
to say. What followed taught me something
about difficulty,
for our underestimated host spoke out
all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:
The statue represents
Giordano Bruno, brought
to be burned in the public square
because of his offence against authority, which was to say
the Church. His crime was his belief
the universe does not revolve around
the human being: God is no
fixed point or central government
but rather is poured in waves, through
all things: all things
move. “If God is not the soul itself,
he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world.” Such was
his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die
they feared he might incite the crowd (the man
was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors
placed upon his face
an iron mask
in which he could not speak.
That is how they burned him.
That is how he died,
without a word,
in front of everyone. And poetry–
(we’d all put down our forks by now, to listen to
the man in gray; he went on softly)– poetry
is what he thought, but did not say.
Christmas Tree by Michael Longley
You are my second grandson, Christmas-born.
I put on specs to read your face. Whispering
Sweet nothings to your glistening eyelids,
Am I outspoken compared with you? You sleep
While I carry you to our elderly beech.
Your forefinger twitches inside its mitten.
Do you feel at home in my aching crook?
There will be room beneath your fontanel
For this branchy diagram of winter.
I take you back indoors to the Christmas tree.
Dangling for you among the fairy lights
Are the zodiac’s animals and people.
