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‘”In Blinking Blankness”: The Last Poems’
John Goodby
Patrick Kavanagh: A Revaluation, Pages: 145 - 162
Swansea University Author: John Goodby
Abstract
Continuation of the other chapter I contributed to this book, dealing with Kavanagh's final poetry, or 'noo pomes', and their origin in his previous work of the 1950s. Contains an extended discussion of Kavanagh's use of the sonnet and the 'Canal Bank sonnets' 'seq...
| Published in: | Patrick Kavanagh: A Revaluation |
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| Published: |
Dublin / Portland
Irish Academic Press
2009
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| Online Access: |
http://irishacademicpress.ie/product/patrick-kavanagh/ |
| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa332 |
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| Abstract: |
Continuation of the other chapter I contributed to this book, dealing with Kavanagh's final poetry, or 'noo pomes', and their origin in his previous work of the 1950s. Contains an extended discussion of Kavanagh's use of the sonnet and the 'Canal Bank sonnets' 'sequence', including 'The Hospital' and 'Canal Bank Walk'. The 'noo pomes', such as 'To Hell with Commonsense' and 'Dear Folks', are seen not as the doggerel efforts they are generally taken to be but as quasi-Skeltonic attempts to write a riskily dialogic poetry of process. The success and failures of this attempt are explored, and issue is taken with Declan Kiberd, whose claim that Kavanagh ruralized Dublin in a reactionary way misses the point that this was what Kavanagh's critics tended to do, not Kavanagh himself. On the other hand, it is suggested that there was more than a hint of desperation in this later writing; it was a 'comic-desperate, semi-mystical dismemberment of the lyric "I" at a time when [Irish] society seemed to be imploding through economic stagnation.' |
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| Keywords: |
Kavanagh, Kiberd, noo pomes, 'Canal Bank Walk', Kristeva, Come Dance With Kitty Stobling |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Start Page: |
145 |
| End Page: |
162 |