Patrick_Kavanagh

If I had to select some poems of Kavanagh for a short anthology titled ‘the essential Kavanagh’ I would choose Iniskeen Road: July Evening, Shancoduff, A Christmas Childhood, Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin, Epic and Advent. These would be my choices because these poems contain such qualities as providing an insight in rural Irish life, celebration of the ordinary and familiar world, the transformation of the ordinary into the exceptional, he also makes good use of the sonnet structure as well as the use of writing styles such as neologism and the repetitive inclusion of “I”, all of which I feel are all characteristic of Kavanagh’s poetry, what it includes and what the poetry is concerned with. Kavanagh’s poetry is inherently Irish. His early poems set out to provide an insight into rural Irish life, a period unthought-of nowadays, but a period which is important to Kavanagh. Therefore his poetry is an historical device; it has a sense of history and patriotism to it. This is one reason I would choose some of the poems I mentioned for ‘the essential Kavanagh’ anthology, because these poems are evidence of Kavanagh writing on something which is important to him. In Iniskeen Road: July Evening we hear of the dances that the Catholic Church disapproved of in the 1930’s as they considered them immoral and dangerous: such dances are the one “in Billy Brennan’s barn tonight,” The reader of the poem is also given insight into the role of the poet in Kavanagh’s time, as we hear from Kavanagh that “I have what every poet hates in spite”, that “I am king/ Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.” In the 1930’s the poet, while respected, was avoided by the rural Irish; Kavanagh called the poet “a stranger within the gates.” Here we see this; Kavanagh cannot partake in the dances. The repetition of “and” in the first stanza shows his compounding misery for the multitude of activities he is missing out on. Poetry in rural Ireland is again exposed in Shancoduff. Kavanagh, tired of the pastoral and almost georgic imagery produced by Irish poets up to and around his time, presents a realistic portrayal of the land. Here we see another aspect of rural Irish life; the difficulties facing farmers with the poor land symbolized by Kavanagh’s “black hills” which “have never seen the sun rising,” Shancoduff consisted of seven, watery hills bought by the Kavanagh family in the 1920’s which were later to be inherited by Kavanagh. The outsider even remarks of Kavanagh “by heavens he must be poor.” The dilapidated state of rural Ireland continues to be Kavanagh’s focus in Advent. Here the land is again poor. The “spirit-shocking wonder” for a child is simply a “black slanting Ulster hill”, possibly alluding to one of Kavanagh’s hills. Also present in the poem are “bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables”, again creating a picture for the audience of rural Ireland, which Kavanagh seeks throughout his poetry to present. Another essential feature of Kavanagh’s poetry is his celebration of the familiar and ordinary world. We see that Kavanagh does not deal with abstract issues but with ones that mean something to him and hence his poetry gains in credibility. The poems I have chosen would thus again be part of ‘the essential Kavanagh’ as these show another aspect of his poetry which is fundamental to Kavangh and his poetry, his love of the ordinary. The “bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables” from Advent adds to his recreation of childhood innocence as Kavanagh will go and watch these as they are “where Time/ begins.” Initially in the poem he remarks that “we have tested and tasted too much” and realizes that he, and others, must abandon the life of luxury to fully experience life. He sees in the final stanza that there is “no need to go searching” for beauty as it is present all around him, in “dung in gardens under trees,/ Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.” Likewise in Iniskeen Road: July Evening Kavanagh turns the ordinary village where “The bicycles go by in twos and threes” into a magical setting with “the half-talk code of mysteries/ And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.” Adding to the wonder of the scene is the mention of “A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.” Outside the town of Iniskeen were Kavanagh’s hills of Shancoduff where more celebration of the ordinary is seen. The hills are nothing to look at. Kavanagh himself remarks they are “my black hills”. We even hear of an outsider remarking of “them hungry hils/ That the water-hen and snipe must have forsaken'” However the hills are majestical in the eyes of the poet with Kavanagh’s calling of them “my Alps” and even the “sleety winds” of the area are described in a warm manner; they “fondle the rushy beards of Shancoduff.” The farm attached to Shancoduff is another ordinary setting that Kavanagh acclaims for the reader in A Christmas Childhood. Here Kavanagh celebrates the family farm where he spent his childhood. When his father played the melodeon, above the farm “There were stars in the morning east/ And they danced to his music.” As the poem concludes the farm is alluded to the birthplace of Jesus Christ as he remarks that “I had a prayer like a white rose pinned/ On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.” In Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin Kavanagh does not only celebrate the familiar world, but he turns things ordinary into the extra-ordinary. This again is essential in Kavanagh’s poetry, as it ties in with his love of the ordinary. The poems chosen would again fit into the anthology as they show yet another important part of Kavanagh’s poetry. Kavangh frequently returns to the ordinary, and thus this must be important to him, and must be mentioned in an anthology which deals with the concerns and style of his poetry. Here the canal water has redemptive qualities and he asks “commemorate me when there is water,/ Canal water preferably, so stilly/ Greeny at the heart of summer.” The canal setting is turned from the ordinary everyday to the heroic with the juxtaposition of the hero’s tomb and the “canal-bank seat for the passer by” at the end. Elsewhere in his poetry, Kavanagh recreates the irrelevant fight and surroundings of Epic so he can remark that he has “lived in important places, times/ When great events were decided” Also, in A Christmas Childhood, Kavanagh remoulds his childhood farm into an Eden-like scene, saying “The light between the ricks of hay and straw/ Was a hole in Heaven’s gable.” Mention of the apple tree “With its December-glinting fruit we saw” alludes to the Tree of Knowledge. Even the familiar act of milking cows is depicted as making “the music of milking”. As general as the milking of a cow is the footfall in Iniskeen Road: July Evening which Kavanagh believes is “tapping secrecies of stone.” The empty countryside devoid of people who are at the dance is his “mile of kingdom” while all are at the dance. Another object of equal regularity, a hill in Shancoduff, has been climbed by the poet, but he tells us “I have climbed the Matterhorn.” Finally, I would choose the poems mentioned for the ‘essential Kavanagh’ as they are all make use of ‘I’. Kavanagh’s poetry is concerned commonly with his own issues, issues which are personal to him, and the poems chosen provide evidence of this. As said above, Kavanagh feels an affinity with nature in Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin. He says “O commemorate me where there is water,” and shows his new-found love of simplicity and nature, after his spell in hospital in the 1950’s. In Epic Kavanagh’s use of “I” is crucial to the poem as his being a poet is of relevance to the ghost of Homer, the famous epic-poet, visiting him. Homer tells him “I made the Iliad from such/ A local row. Gods make their own importance.” Elsewhere, the poet-Kavanagh is at the centre of Iniskeen Road: July Evening. Apart from him, only “Alexander Selkirk knew the plight/ of being king and government and nation.” There are no inhabitants for his “mile of kingdom” for all are dancing. Isolation affects Kavanagh in Shancoduff too. While he corrects the cattle-drovers about his “Alps”, Kavanagh remarks “I hear and is my heart not badly shaken.” He is content with his lot, but his being left-out is notable. In Advent his self-inclusion validates the criticism that “We have tested and tasted too much”. He and others must repent and he tells his lover that “we’ll return to Doom/ The knowledge we stole but could not use.” All of these poems focus on issues which are central to Kavanagh, which Kavanagh often uses his poetry to explore. As shown, the poems chosen provide a suitable anthology for Kavanagh’s poetry, revealing Kavanagh’s poetry to its reader. Through reading Kavanagh’s poetry, they are transported back to rural Irish life and given a taste of life not just for the poet, but the common inhabitant of the time. Devices of Kavanagh stretch from the celebration of the familiar world to the making the ordinary exceptional. Variance of mood and atmosphere circles the poetry, intruding when Kavanagh sees fit, creating wonderful poetry. Any reader will see from the poems I have chosen what Kavanagh’s poetry says, and how it says it. Neologism - that is, the creation or coinage of new words, is a common element in Kavanagh's language. He achieves this by joining two or more existing words together in a hyphenated form to create a new word. Examples of this are found in all his poems: Advent - "Advent-darkened"; "spirit-shocking"; "heart-breaking". Inniskeen Road: July Evening - "half-talk"; "wink-and-elbow". Canal Bank Walk - "leafy-with-love". Lines Written... - "far-flung"; "canal-bank"; "mid-July". The effect of these hyphenated words is to create a simplicity of image, a two rather than three dimensional picture mirroring the simplicity of the child's mind or the sense of awe and wonder that the poet possesses -: "wherever life pours ordinary plenty". Kavanagh also creates new words by coining adverbs and adjectives from existing nouns. Again the effect is to create a sense of mystery and wonder. In "Lines Written...Dublin" words such as 'stilly', 'greeny', 'Niagariously' and 'Parnassian' represent this feature of Kavanagh's language. Related to this is Kavanagh's habit of combining existing words to form a new one. In "Advent", the word 'dreeping' is a fusion of the words dripping and creeping which is designed to create in the mind of the reader the qualities of both words. Words like these reflect the creativity not just of Kavanagh, but of the uninhabited mind of the child. The poems on the course display Kavanagh's ability of the sonnet form which is a structural feature of "Inniskeen Road", "Advent", "Lines Written..." and Canal Bank Walk". In "Inniskeen Road", Kavanagh combines features of the Petrarchan and Shakespearean forms. Stanzaic pattern reflects the Petrarchan subdivision of a sonnet to an octet and sestet. In the octet a picture is painted by the poet and the problems are posed. The poets own personal response is contained in the sestet. The opening stanza can be subdivided into two quatrains each containing a separate picture of Monaghan life. The sestet also can be divided into a quatrain and couplet, therefore mirroring the Shakespearean division into three quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme of the poem is also Shakespearean-: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. "Advent" represents Kavanagh's particular use of the sonnet form. The poem is an amalgam of two sonnets. The stanzaic pattern is neither Petrarchan nor Shakespearean. The opening two stanzas each contain seven lines with the third stanza representing an entire sonnet. The division of the sonnet into two septets is unusual and Kavanagh formulates a rhyme scheme to parallel this-: aabbccbd, aab, aacc. Stanza three is again different as Kavanagh reverts to the Shakespearean rhyming technique -: abab, cded, fgfg, hh. The thought pattern of the third stanza follows that set out by the opening two stanza with a natural pause occurring at the end of the seventeenth line. The reason why Kavanagh does not create a fourth stanza is that the rhythm of the third stanza reflects the excitement that Kavanagh associates with having rediscovered "the luxury of a child's soul" The three stanzas in the poem reflects the three stages in Kavanagh's bid to regain this position - penance, forgiveness, grace. "Canal Bank Walk" is written in the traditional 14 line sonnet form with no stannic separation. In this poem, Kavanagh combines both the Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets using the same methods as in "Inniskeen Road". "Lines Written..." is fashioned completely in the Petrarchan style. Both the thought pattern and the rhyming scheme follow an octet-sestet sublimation. Kavanagh was unquestionably a poet place formed to a large extent by his experiences in his native Monaghan and later in his adopted Dublin. "Stony Grey Soil" depicts best, Kavanagh's preoccupation with environment . It shows the bitterness and the tragedy of his life there. His awareness is hypersensitive and this allowed him to fear the brutality of the 'Stony Grey Soil'. In the poem he is ill at ease in an environment and culture he condemns. He uses verbs such as clogged, and burgled to display his sense of desperation and loss. In the first five stanzas of the poem, Kavanagh attacks the dreariness and drabness of his native environment. It is one of 'steaming dung hills' that gave rise to a stumble and a thick-tongued mumble. It was an environment dominated by agriculture, here symbolised by the plough - a plough that robbed him of the happiness and gaiety of youth -: "Your mandrill strained, your coulter blunted In the smooth lea-field of my brow." However, the change that occurs in the final two and a half stanzas suggests that Kavanagh has a love-hate relationship with his native environment. The negative images are now countered by an underweave of love-: "You flung a ditch in my vision (negative) Of beauty, love and truth." (love) "Lost the long hours of pleasure All the women that love young men."(love) The paradox of the final line-: "Dead loves that were born for me" best illustrates the paradox, that is, his attitude to his native Ireland. Therefore, Kavanagh in this poem has a tow-edged attitude to the environment of his youth. The caustic accusatory tone is countered by a softer, affectionate tone, the argument with himself has produced the poetry. Although Kavanagh arrived in Dublin in 1939, leaving behind his sixteen acres of stony grey soil, it was not, until the mid 1950's that his adopted city provided the environmental background to his work. The summer of 1955 and the banks of the Grand Canal in Dublin are the time and place which moved Kavanagh to write "Canal Bank Walk" and "Lines Written...". Kavanagh's attitude to the environment changed dramatically following his operation for lung cancer. He said "As a poet I was born in or about 1955, the place of my birth being the banks of the Grand Canal". This new appreciation of the environment, his vision of Eden is evident in his novel "Tarry Flynn", where he wrote "O the rich beauty of the weeds in the ditches, Tarry's heart cried: the lush Nettles and Docks and tuffs of grass. Life pouring out in critical abundance." In the novel he also wrote "Without ambition, without desire, the beauty of the world pared in thought his unresting mind." These two sentences describe exactly the moods of Kavanagh in 'Canal Bank Walk' and 'Lines Written..." Here the environment is glorified in a pantheistic manner. Kavanagh uses hyperbole and many neologisms in an attempt to demonstrate the magnificence of nature as experimented by the innocent mind of a child or of the poet reformed to the state of grace. The opposing attitudes expressed by Kavanagh to the environments of Monaghan and Dublin reflect more on his state of mind than on the environments themselves. In 1963 he did recognise the beauty of the Monaghan countryside-: "Thirty-years before, Shank Duff's water-fill could of done the trick for me, but I was too thick to realise it"