Is the black cut-out figure outside the Pembroke pub on Dublin's Lower Pembroke Street meant to be Patrick Kavanagh? If so, as some maintain, then his biographer, Antoinette Quinn, thinks he got a raw deal - endlessly on the outside looking in. The chances are he would have been quite comfortable inside the pub on Monday night for the launch of Patrick Kavanagh: A Biography by Quinn, a Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College, Dublin, who also happens to be married to the pub's owner, Brian Crowley. In these days of glitzy launch venues there was something comforting about a launch, not just in a pub, but in such a familiar, old pub. There was even a real fire blazing.
Anthony Cronin, the poet's close friend, spoke movingly of Kavanagh as a man of genius and the challenges of a world where the enemy of genius and humanity is mediocrity. This was a truthful, honest biography of a man who was very self-contradictory and dramatised himself endlessly- difficult terrain for a biographer, Cronin said.
Quinn spoke of the various "Eureka moments" along the way, particularly contact with the Hanratty family. In Tarry Flynn, Tarry's friendship with the wonderfully named Eusebius Cassidy is modelled on Kavanagh's friendship with Val Hanratty of Channonrock, with whom he discussed women and poetry and cycled to dances. Val's younger brother was called Eusebius, one of three local boys named after Father Eusebius, father superior of the Marist Fathers, who ran a boys' secondary school in Dundalk. Bring back the name Eusebius, says Sadbh.
Rumours that Kavanagh's brother Peter, author of Sacred Keeper and, more recently, Patrick Kavanagh: A Life Chronicle, might appear at any moment proved unfounded, so what he might think about this new biography we can't say. Anthony Cronin spoke of Quinn's bravery and insightfulness in writing it and, judging by the reviews tacked onto the pub wall, many agree. Writers Philip Casey, Brendan Kennelly, Anne Haverty, EilΘan N∅ Chuilleanβin and Macdara Woods were among the throng to give it a good launch.
New Island Books is usually associated with non-fiction, since it has such a strong backlist of memoir, essays, and reportage. Very occasionally, it publishes poetry and one such book is Grace, a collection by Maynooth-based poet, Bill Tinley. The book was launched by Dermot Bolger in the Winding Stair bookshop and cafe in Dublin this week. Bolger published a sample of Tinley's poems many moons ago on his then Raven Arts Press list, in the Raven Introductions series. Grace, which has a striking cover featuring Vermeer's Girl Reading a Letter, is Tinley's debut collection. The poems are a lyrical tracking of a life's journey thus far: through the simple but cherished markers of love, marriage, travel, children, work, and family life. In 'In Lieu of a Honeymoon Album', the couple's journey ends in Seville, where:
Tomorrow we'll cross the Quadalquivir
And reach our journey's longest parallel,
The furthest south we've ever been together.
let the shallow shadow of the afternoon
Be love's first limit, not its last meridian.
Wolfhound Press, one of the stalwarts on the Irish publishing scene, has been acquired by Merlin Publishing. The name is new to Sadbh, but it is the new-ish publishing arm of the Merlin Films group, which was co-founded by financier Kieran Corrigan and director John Boorman - hence, presumably, the Merlin monicker. Seamus Cashman, synonymous for so long with Wolfhound, will act as a consultant editor to the new management but tells Sadbh he's glad to give up the 24-hour-a-day commitment and looks forward now to doing some writing of his own.
Congratulations to Keith Ridgeway, author of the novel The Long Falling and a short story collection, who is taking France by storm. He has won the Prix Femina Etranger for the best work in translation and the Premier Roman Etranger for best first novel. Faber will publish his next novel in 2003.
Judging by the letters she generates from readers - which range from outraged to admiring - few are distinterested in the Saturday Guardian columnist Julie Burchill. The Mirror says of her: "This woman writes the backside off her contemporaries". Just as Kevin Myers surprised his readers by writing a romantic novel, Burchill, whose usual beat is poking the eyes out of such subjects as Diana, the late princess, and David Beckham, the post-modern prince of football, has now written a novel for teenagers. Sugar Rush has just been sold to Macmillan Children's Books, and is apparently about two teenage girls in love. Macmillan are probably hoping for another Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson's first - and best - book.
The latest edition of THE SHOp, No 7, is now out. Edited by John and Hilary Wakeman, this illustrated poetry magazine originates in Cork and looks considerably more handsome than many of its fellow poetry journals. It's a Brown Thomas rather than a Pound shop production. The autumn/winter edition uses good-quality paper and an attractive, well-designed layout and format. Among this issue's contributors are Moya Cannon, Gerald Dawe, Greg Delanty, James Liddy, Gerard Smyth, Aidan Rooney-Cespedes, and John O'Donnell, whose poem 'Wren Night' is in memory of Michael Hartnett.