Laird wins Rooney Prize: Nick Laird may frequently be described as Mr Zadie Smith, so much does his wife's reputation precede the young literary couple, but it will definitely be his night in Dublin on Bloomsday, June 16th, when he is presented with The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.
Currently in its 30th year, and worth €10,000, the prize goes annually to an Irish writer who must be under 40. Laird had the equivalent of a literary hat-trick recently by producing his first collection of poetry, To a Fault (Faber) and his first novel, Utterly Monkey (Fourth Estate), within months of each other. Writing in these pages, John Kenny found little in the novel to hold stylistic or thematic interest while Belinda McKeon found the Co Tyrone-born writer's poems "memorable and troubling in equal measure".
Larkin's Belfast days
Philip Larkin's time in Belfast - he was sub-librarian at Queen's University from 1950 to 1955 - is the subject of an article by Enda Longley in the first issue of The Yellow Nib, the literary journal of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's. Belfast influenced Larkin's poetry, writes Longley in the piece which is based on a conference paper, adding that he also influenced the poets who in the 1960s would be viewed collectively as "Belfast poets". Overall, "Larkin's time here can be seen as a key moment in the complex interactions that continue to shape modern poetry in these islands". The smaller, more collegiate, less managerial Queen's of that day gave him a busy social life and two intense amours; his sexual liaisons and their poetic fallout were eased by distance from his family and relationships in England, she says. He wrote three-quarters of The Less Deceived (1955) in Belfast but ultimately couldn't see himself staying there indefinitely. "I was sorry to go, but I had been at Queen's nearly five years, and I could not see myself as an Anglo-Ulsterman with a cottage at Cushendall and an adopted accent," Larkin wrote about his leaving.
Longley describes how the Belfast world Larkin knew was to change utterly not long after he left, making the point that when some critics later gave out about the North's poets for not tackling the Troubles in more direct ways, Larkin's aesthetic example would sometimes be blamed for de-politicising them in advance. "That is, most poets went on responding to what stirred their imaginations rather than to critical or political pundits 'telling chaps what to do'. They did not give up on poetic complexity, on 'the formal distancing of emotion'. One of Philip Larkin's legacies to Belfast literary culture, then, is that we have fewer bad Troubles poems than might otherwise be the case."
The journal, under general editor Ciaran Carson, has a simple aim - to publish good writing. This issue has poems by Seamus Heaney, Jorge Luis Borges and Alan Gillis among others, and a collection of Polish poems translated by Cathal McCabe, including a section from the wonderfully titled Coffins from IKEA by Bodhan Zadura: "And then - of course!-/ it clicked:/ the one thing they lacked/ and I thought that if she/ were the one to bury me/ and they were here on sale/ at least in that misfortune she'd find some pleasure still."
Devil music
Critic and author Terry Eagleton has emerged as the writer of something entirely different - a song about the legend that a devil appeared during the showband era at the famous Tooreen Ballroom of Romance in Co Mayo. The song can be heard as part of a multimedia exhibition by Co Mayo artist Eilis Murphy, who is from Tooreen. For her exhibition, which opens today at The Studio, 36 Lesson Close, off Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2, Murphy tracked down Michael Henry, who as a 15-year-old in 1954 was among those behind the apparition prank. Now living in England, he ran weekly Irish music sessions in 1970s Oxford which were attended by Eagleton, Tom Paulin and Bernard O'Donoghue among others. The other half of the show is by Galway artist Sheila Rennick, who explores mail-order brides and online dating in her work. The exhibition, which continues until June 19th, runs Mon-Fri, 10am-5pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm-6pm.
Palin heads for Lismore
Michael Palin is the keynote speaker at this year's Immrama Festival of Travel Writing (June 17th-19th) in Lismore, Co Waterford, hometown of the doyenne of travel writers, Dervla Murphy, who is a patron of the event. Palin will speak about his recent trip to the Himalayas, a journey that took him to the Khyber Pass, the hidden valleys of the Hindu Kush, ancient cities such as Peshawar and Lahore and the gorges of the Yangtze. The paperback edition of Himalaya has just been published by Phoenix. Others participating include Brian Keenan and Dick Warner. Tickets from 058-54975.