Biddy Jenkinson has been a compelling voice in the world of Irish poetry since her stunning Baiste Gintli appeared in 1986. She has chosen not to have her work translated to English in Ireland and has only begun to read in public in recent years. Her reading adds new dimensions of stress, emotion and colour to poems which are pitched boldly somewhere between the controlled classical grace of Maire Mhac an tSaoi and the wild other-worldliness of Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. In Amhras Neimhe (Cois ceim, £4), she draws on myth and the bardic tradition, yet paradoxically manages not to venture too far from the domestic and consumerist concerns of contemporary sub urban life. This is the neat balancing act that Biddy has made her own.
Bhi sladmhargadh ubh tigh Supervalu inniu.
Ba Leir ar a maise gurbh fhili iad na ceaca a rug
Ba chnaisti mol-ailne, minsnoite, donndaite iad uileag
is dha bhuiochan (bri dhubailte a ndanta) i ngach gug (sic)
(I wonder if the punctuation inconsistencies are poet's own or just the result of lax proof reading?) The poem "Aisling" is a clever gender reversal of the 18th-century aisling where the male poet meets the speirbhean. Here the narrator encounters a speirfhear, deerlike in stature, a tender, whitetoothed, wild-eyed young poet. The poem builds up with welljudged tongue-in-cheek wit in typical Jenkinson fashion, only to tail off to a less than challenging resolution. This is a fault I find with some of these poems - they lack the geit of the earlier work, and need to be tied more firmly to avoid unravelling. But Jenkinson is very good at the fuarann an gra type wistfulness and this is seen to best effect in poems such as "Geimhreadh", where the emotion and the poetry itself are not smothered by flourishes of language and form.
By contrast, Tom McIntyre's method is direct. I sense the wonderment of repossession and free spirit in his poems in Ag Caint leis an mBanrion (Coisceim, £3). Post-Victorian PC never caught on in his part of Cavan. Was he an associate of Suibhne Geilt in a previous life? He doesn't have to look too far for things to write about.
An buachalan mor,
millteach mor, an
buachalan mor
dur dana, an
buachalan mor
gan cheart gan choir -
is an tsuil ata aige,
an creatur -
suil agam go mbeidh
tu romham ar maidin.
("An Buachalan")
Sometimes, however, he doesn't tell us enough, clearly enough, to know what's going on ".. . chonaic sise i fresin/ scail cheobhranach
champai/ froisfhreasacha an chroi" are intriguing lines in a poem about a Banrion, Brodsky and Manhattan, but I need a little more help from within the poem itself to know fully their significance. But well-lit lyrical observations in an Irish that is just briste enough to be unpredictable catch the eye off guard and draw it in:
. . an t-earrach san aer
an fion ag deanamh
ceil i cois tine,
is cuma an tsamhraidh
ar laimh mo stoir,
ar an gciorbhui ag damhsa
-
nach bhfeiceann tu e? -
an ciorbhui ag damhsa
ar laimhin mo stoir.
Louis de Paor's tribute to his mentor, Leabhar Sheain Ui Thuama (Coisceim, £6), is a well-edited collection of poems and translations in Irish, Scots Gaelic and English by twentyfive poets. But firstly let me get two quibbles out of the way: the absence of the expansive and innovative talent of Gabriel Rosenstock from yet another anthology of con temporary poetry, and the funereal cover which throws an unsettling pall over two hundred well-designed pages.
Louis tells us in his foreword that his main criterion in making this diverse and impressive selection was to choose poems he felt Sean himself would admire. I have never had many quibbles with O Tuama's idea of what constitutes dan maith, although much of the sex/ drugs/rock'n'roll and culturally disconnected elements of Gaelic poetry on both sides of the Sea of Moyle may not be within Sean's terms of reference.
These are deeply felt, wellwrought poems. Mary O'Mal ley, Patrick Galvin, Thomas McCarthy, Gerry Murphy and Greg Delanty are here, as well as Seamus Heaney and two delightful translations from Eoghan Rua O Suilleabhai n and Aodhagan O Rathaille - and I love Brendan Kennelly's "Old Woman of Beare". The great living names of Scots Gaelic bardachd are here, Mac a' Ghobhainn, Mac Thomais and Macneacail, and a baker's dozen of their Irish cousins mostly in our late forties/early fifties. The thirties generation are represented by the gifted Colm Breathnach and de Paor himself, whose "Setanta" is a very fine poem.
But where are the under thirties these days? Where are the young Gaeltacht Creole generation? That's another day's work. Given Sean O Tuama's wicked sense of the absurd, I finish with a Thomas Kinsella translation:
Six special qualities in women:
their beauty; the womanly voice; their sweet talk;
needlework; their natural wisdom; chastity.
Seven special qualities in men:
self control, until the time of fury;
skill in close combat; skill in planning;
clear thinking; thinking ahead; chess; draughts.
(from "The Wooing of Emer")
B'in iad na days, a bhitch!
Michael Davitt is a producer/director with Under-COVER, the RTE books programme; Scuais, his new collection of poems, will be published this year