A PHILOSOPHY OF POETRY

 

Poetry for me is a way of life, for my masters degree

I wrote how Patrick Kavanagh and Raymond  Carver

showed me to the way to the philosophy of poetry.

When I was a young boy I lived in Hacksballscross

just a mile from Kavanaghs birthplace Inniskeen

the townland of Mucker, meaning friend in Irish.

 

Carver and Kavanagh were miles apart and time-

lines apart. I was the catalyst doing my degree

at the poets house in Donegal, I sent them three

poems and was asked to go on a 2 week

poetry retreat.

 

I mucked in so well in Port muck, all the muck-

mucker-Portmuck under the tabletop

of muckish mountain. All the pagan placenames

pointing to a poet who wrote a poem called

pagan poet. The poetry of Kavanagh was every-

where in Hackballscross his poetry seeped into

my blood, when my teacher read his poetry

I was hypnotised into a trace.

 

The teacher went out to see my parents

to persuade them for me to stay on but

I hated school and wanted to stand on

my own two feet get away from my

fathers ogre like home rule regime

 

E

 

I went to work in Dublin and London started

reading up on poetry critique, creative writing.

I was reading all the classics like Yeats, Pound,

Eliot etc, I was going going right over my head.

I signed up for a creative writing further education

class at the local tech. I took with me a list

 A list of contemporary writer like the beat poets,

Plath, Sexton and Lowell’s life studies.

 

The tutor said I had to read Dante, Virgil, Shakespeare etc,

I walked out the door went to library Set up a desk

with the door of the box room for typewriter and books.

He told his wife he would work no more as he wanted

to be a writer said it might take two years to be published,

it took six.

 

A friend called him being the only person who spoke of literature

he lent him ‘Fires’ by Raymond Carver, he said I would get so much

from this writer, the blurb on the back said trailer park literature.

Sparked my attention an alco poet without the beer soaked pages

of hungover blues.

 

For ten years he wrote and rewrote and rewrote, read and reread

Carvers poetry Salmon Rushdie who said read every thing carver wrote

he was a great writer so I do.ne what I was told. He had his first  

poem a bastard life in an athology, he went to the library, told them

about his publication. And set up a creative writing class that began

with Carvers magic words, his oness as the Buddists say.

 

When his friend left he flicked through the book stopped at.

A poem for Karl Walenda aerial supreme he felt he was on

The sky walk tight rope holdig Carvers hand, was as if the poems

Were written for him,his language He was being published in small

press poetry mags. Then a chap book an intro with four other

writers. He went to work for the poets house, everything seemed

so right, Jimmy Janice simmons offered him a scholarship.

He levitated all the way from Donegal-

to Craigavon.

 

Out bullets and bombs while I blattered out peace pomes.

I worked for an arts center setting up workshops for adults

and children in schools and youth centres. I was so centred

on these workshops that took over my lifer, without being

clocked In or out. I think there for, I am.

 

My first collection ‘Splint’ was published on the blurb

on the back said. Imbued by the poetry

Of Raymond Carver, to be mentioned on in the same

sentence with Raymond Carver. This is A paragraph of wonder

that holds bombs and bullets, imbued in peace of wonder. I went all

Around the world Hungary, Germany, Dublin, Amsterdam Belfast

even produced a C.D. with a folk singer friend of mine Rodney Cordner

we even set up a series of workshops based on the C.D. Violets.

An anagram of lost lives. We toured all over Europe

and Ireland with Ann Gallaghers seeds of hope with talks on the peace

process on my return home I took a massive stroke and spent

A year in foster green, a rehab hospital losing all my long term memory

paralyzed down my right. Wheelchair bound I hope that this is true?