Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Patrick Kavanagh: realistic diction about realistic subjects

A great influence Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney

  • March

  • There’s a wind blowing
  • Cold through the corridors,
  • A ghost-wind,
  • The flapping of defeated wings,
  • A hell-fantasy
  • From meadows damned
  • To eternal April
  • And listening, listening
  • To the wind
  • I hear
  • The throat-rattle of dying men,
  • From whose ears oozes
  • Foamy blood,
  • Throttled in a brothel.
  • I see brightly
  • In the wind vacancies
  • Saint Thomas Aquinas
  • And 
  • Poetry blossoms
  • Excitingly
  • As the first flower of truth.
  • April Dusk

  • April dusk
  • It is tragic to be a poet now
  • And not a lover
  • Paradised under the mutest bough.
  • I look through my window and see
  • The ghost of life flitting bat-winged.
  • O I am as old as a sage can even be,
  • O I am as lonely as the first fool kinged.
  • The horse in his stall turns away
  • From the hay-filled manger, dreaming of grass
  • Soft and cool in hollows. Does he neigh
  • Jealousy-words for John MacGuigan’s ass
  • That never was civilised in stall or trace.
  • An unmusical ploughboy whistles down the lane
  • Not worried at all about the fate of Europe.
  • While I sit here feeling the subtle pain
  • Of one whose Tree of God has been uprooted. 
  • Wet Evening in April

  • The birds sang in the wet trees 
  • And I listened to them it was a hundred years from now 
  • And I was dead and someone else was listening to them. 
  • But I was glad I had recorded for him 
  • The melancholy. 
Patrick Kavanagh

Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) was an Irish poet who developed his talent under the mentorship of fellow Irish poet AE (George William Russell). Eschewing the sentimental and highly stylized approach to writing about rural life in Ireland which was popular at the time, Kavanagh wrote instead in a realistic diction about realistic subjects. His work later influenced Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, who shared an affinity with Kavanagh for writing about the local and parochial to reveal the universal and timeless.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Woodpeckers are stocking away acorns, Amorous tarantulas

Stunning sycamores, Mars rising
  • March

  • There’s a wind blowing
  • Cold through the corridors,
  • A ghost-wind,
  • The flapping of defeated wings,
  • A hell-fantasy
  • From meadows damned
  • To eternal April
  • And listening, listening
  • To the wind
  • I hear
  • The throat-rattle of dying men,
  • From whose ears oozes
  • Foamy blood,
  • Throttled in a brothel.
  • I see brightly
  • In the wind vacancies
  • Saint Thomas Aquinas
  • And 
  • Poetry blossoms
  • Excitingly
  • As the first flower of truth.
  • April Dusk

  • April dusk
  • It is tragic to be a poet now
  • And not a lover
  • Paradised under the mutest bough.
  • I look through my window and see
  • The ghost of life flitting bat-winged.
  • O I am as old as a sage can even be,
  • O I am as lonely as the first fool kinged.
  • The horse in his stall turns away
  • From the hay-filled manger, dreaming of grass
  • Soft and cool in hollows. Does he neigh
  • Jealousy-words for John MacGuigan’s ass
  • That never was civilised in stall or trace.
  • An unmusical ploughboy whistles down the lane
  • Not worried at all about the fate of Europe.
  • While I sit here feeling the subtle pain
  • Of one whose Tree of God has been uprooted. 
  • Wet Evening in April

  • The birds sang in the wet trees 
  • And I listened to them it was a hundred years from now 
  • And I was dead and someone else was listening to them. 
  • But I was glad I had recorded for him 
  • The melancholy. 
Patrick Kavanagh

Patrick Kavanagh (1904-1967) was an Irish poet who developed his talent under the mentorship of fellow Irish poet AE (George William Russell). Eschewing the sentimental and highly stylized approach to writing about rural life in Ireland which was popular at the time, Kavanagh wrote instead in a realistic diction about realistic subjects. His work later influenced Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, who shared an affinity with Kavanagh for writing about the local and parochial to reveal the universal and timeless.

Sponsored
Sponsored
Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Escondido planners nix office building switch to apartments

Not enough open space, not enough closets for Hickory Street plans
Next Article

Trophy truck crushes four at Baja 1000

"Two other racers on quads died too,"
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader