Vincent Browne Cathal O’Searcaigh The Three Card Trick
March 22, 2008
Vincent Browne , writing in the Irish Times has entered the O’Searcaigh debate. He writes of the general exploitation of those who live on the minimum wage , those who are marginalised in our society. He also raises the question of the movie itself and wonders if that was exploitative. In short , in spite his liberal credentials he repeats what most other journalist have said on the matter. His interpretation is the classic liberal one and it’s hard to fault it. He presses all the right buttons and is , I would imagine quite sincere in his argument. And yet it has all left me cold. I feel an immense tiredness. It’s hard to put it into words. ……But I’ve been here before …..And I suppose that most of all I am conscious of the fact that I cannot win , that I will be proved wrong in the long run….As I say , I’ve been here before. And the truth is of course that I’m not going to win this argument. I never was going to win. ….And less someone say that this is not about who wins or who loses let me make it quite clear here and now that that is exactly what it IS all about. That , boys and girls is what it’s always about. And there are winners and losers. There always are. And the winner of course gets to write the final chapter.
And the truth? Well , that doesn’t matter either. He who wins gets to dictate what was or was not true in the first place. You may say , in fact I’m sure you will say that all this is very cynical. But no , it’s not cynical it’s just the truth. But wait …..at this point the liberal will be heard insisting that there is indeed a thing called truth. He’ll say it loud and clear. He will declaim it from the rooftops. …..If he’s a journalist he will use all his skill and eloquence ….he may well bring a tear to our eyes and a lump to our throats.
In the movie , “In Cold Blood” there is a scene in which one of the killers is being interrogated by the police and is asked if he feels guilty. His answer is simple. “Guilty , that just a word the man (judge) say’s when your luck runs out.” And of course he’s right (from his point of view). Which only helps to underline the fact that words can and often do mean different things to different people. And that there is always a winner and a loser. In fact it’s all about who wins and who loses.
Vincent Browne would have us believe that it might have been better (more just) if the movie “Fairytale of Kathmandu” had not been made. And you have to stop here or at least pause a moment because this is where it gets …….well , confused. The movie , he feels was unfair , unbalance even hypocritical ……Like I say , this is where you have to go very slow. This is where you have to start thinking. As they used to say in the old war movies , “Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes”. And in this instance , forget what I said about truth or anything else , just keep watching….because this is how the trick is done. Now , watch closely and don’t let yourself be distracted by anything ….And remember that Browne is a journalist and words are his tools …..
Vincent Browne would , as I’ve said have preferred the film was never made. He would rather we were not having this debate. He may try to square that circle by telling you that it’s the manner of the debate , the way in which it came into the public realm that he’s got a problem with but the bottom line remains that he didn’t want this film made. Now keep watching and remember what I said , “Don’t let yourself be distracted!” And in case you didn’t hear me the first time let me say it a little louder , “DON’T LET YOURSELF BE DISTRACTED!”.
Browne would have liked it better if we were not having this conversation. He feels that O’Searcaigh was used by the director of the movie , that we were all used , exploited by Ni Chainain. That the whole thing is in a sense a sham. He makes the point that we live in an unfair society where the poor and underprivileged are exploited daily , he expresses concern …..He puts forward as I’ve said a classic argument. …..He would have liked this whole issue to be debated in a proper manner and in the absence of that he would rather there was no debate. Or at least not this one. He has a perception of what a fair and honest debate is and this is not it. He aims for an ideal and this debate does not meet his rigid standard……that the issue should be presented and examined through the medium of popular television makes him very unhappy. The medium that is , with which the great mass of underprivileged feel most comfortable with , this popular media is the last place he wants the issue discussed. And yet this very media is used every other day in this manner. It is the norm for investigative journalism and has been for years without Browne having any problem with it.
He is a bit like the Socialist Worker Party who demand revolution but usually end up critical of anyone who starts one on the basis that it’s not quite pure enough. And like the SWP he has a fundamental distrust if not fear of the great unwashed especially when they start making demands of any sort. He (and all the rest) feel that they know best and they don’t like loosing control. They , the artists , poets and journalist stand shoulder to shoulder protecting their ground. From their privileged position (their near total control of the media) they lecture us on ethics and even philosophy. But they also judge us. And they judge us to be unlearned , unsophisticated in thought and intellect , little short of drones. They look at us and see the mob…..a howling mass of unthinking humanity that must be protected from itself. Trial by media they shout in disgust …..like magistrates of old they set their faces against the very people they would claim to be serving. They pride themselves on their liberalism but in a different age might have been writing for The Catholic Herald.
As I keep repeating over and over again all this has little to do with O’Searcaigh and it has even less to do with any concept of truth. This is about power. And power is not an abstract concept. Power is covetous. It is the powerful who dictate the terms of debate or if indeed there is to be a debate in the first place. But once in a very blue moon something goes wrong…..somone somewhere breaks rank….this is the ultimate sin against power. This way lies anarchy. But anarchy of course is one of those words which can mean different things to different people. It’s largely a matter of geography and politics and of course who exactly is telling the story.
For 20 years the working class have been subjected to trial by media/conviction without due process without as much as blink from the Brownes of this world. Daily , weekly and monthly they are and have been slandered as racists or homophobes if they dare to raise their heads above the parapet. Entire communities damned as ignorant or just plain stupid and worse still if they have the temerity to express an opinion. And this is never done to our faces but from the safe refuge of their ivory towers , their insulated fortresses. Whole communities marginalised and disfranchised and slandered and not so much as twitch from our modern liberals. Gombeens and hypocrites putting the boot in……and always from that safe distance. Like Mandelstam and his Lutherans, they mourn the fate of their poet (he’s no Mandlestam -and they known it) but they are really mourning an attack on one of their own class. Like intellectual schizophrenics they will stand by O’Searcaigh before lunch and after a hearty meal will be just as eager to stand by some mad mullah who would be more than happy to castrate him. Happy to praise the banality of Bowling for Columbine , delighted to raise it to the level of art ………but that was yesterday…..and a long way from home.
No , this has nothing to do with truth. This is war , class war and it’s vicious. Remember the first rule of war ; know your enemy. And this enemy all have one thing in common , none of them work for the minimum wage. They take a salary that most can only dream of and often supplement that with an Arts Council grant. They would try to convince you that this is about Truth or Justice and other such abstractions but there’s nothing at all abstract about an Arts Council grant or a journalist’s wage. Privilege always attempts to dress itself in fine clothes. And privilege can afford them.
Free speech is dead and it died on their watch , with their collusion but they didn’t even have the integrity to write it’s obituary. Browne’s article is both subtle and devious parading as he does his concern for the masses but we must not loose sight of what he is really saying. And he’s telling us to ‘look at the big picture’ ( he assumes , in his arrogance that we have not already done this). He asks us to consider the greater injustice ( but we’ve been saying just that for years ). He would like to divert our attention. Browne is the ‘reasonable man’ but as I’ve said elsewhere and often the reasonable man is always the one with the full belly. The more property/wealth a man acquires the more reasonable he becomes. Empires (once established and consolidated ) demand reason and order. Before we know it these words themselves have acquired an almost mystical quality , a pseudo- religious quality which may not even be questioned. It happens in the blink of an eye. As Dylan wrote , “It’s done with the flick of a wrist” and we never see it coming. “Words are power” and it’s the powerful who controll the media…..and the words.
To read my other posts on the O’Searcaigh affair click here and scroll down.
Sausages Journalism Culture Blogging.
March 19, 2008
If your in the business of making sausages (or anything practical like that) then here is a great opportunity for you. For a modest fee The Academy will turn you into a journalist. Apart from the increase in salary that this will afford you there are other benefits which you may not be aware of.
For instance , as a journalist you may claim to be a champion of truth . You don’t have to be a good journalist to make this claim nor do you have to have even the vaguest interest in truth. You can also create the illusion that you are intelligent and most people will accept it as fact regardless of how stupid you might be. You can , in short , pass yourself off as a cultured chap with all that that implies. You can even sell your soul and still be applauded for it. Now if you decide not to be a journalist but to remain at the sausage factory then its a different matter altogether. In the latter case you may find yourself being labeled a ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ without you even having expressed an opinion on these matters.
Of course you don’t have to take up journalism. You could just as well take a crash course in poetry or film making. Any of these options will transform your situation…
You could of course bypass The Academy , keep the money in your pocket and just learn the ‘lingo’. You could practice in front of the mirror. Just stand in front of a mirror and keep repeating the stock phrases such as ‘multiculturism’ or ‘the right to choose’ or anything else that comes into your head. You don’t have to actually understand anything about these things as no one will notice or even care. But it’s important that you look yourself in the eye without blinking or fidgeting or anything like that. Hence the need to practice in front of the mirror.
Now if your one of those people who find themselves becoming sexually aroused in the company of young people then I definitely recommend becoming a poet……as a sausage maker you’ll only get your head kicked in but if you can string a few words together your on the horses back…
You might even decide to take up the blogging. But you won’t win any points in the Irish Blog Awards as a sausage maker. There are , by the way , no Irish sausage blogs….this in spite of the fact that there is something very appealing about a sausage. A sausage is a sausage. There is something very honest about it. It is , what it says on the label. You can rely on a sausage…And a man who makes sausages is a man deserving of honour.
Cathal O’Searcaigh Mark O’Halloran The Moral Vacuum
March 16, 2008
I have written quite a bit in the last couple of weeks about Cathal O’Searcaigh and the movie , ”Fairytale of Kathmandu“. I have not seen the film and to be honest I have no interest in seeing it. O’Searcaigh is not important to me , nor are the opinions of those who choose to justify him in their various and pathetic ways. So this is my final word on the matter , for what it’s worth….
On Wednesday morning last I got up and had my two cups of coffee , flicked on my laptop and checked my emails. I had my little Sony radio sitting beside the laptop and , as is my habit , I switched it on without any real intention of listening to it…..I like a little ‘background noise’ , I’m one of those people who cannot concentrate without something at least murmuring in the background. The Tubridy Show was on and he , Brian Tubridy was talking to the Irish screen writer Mark O’Halloran but I wasn’t really paying much attention….at least that is , not to begin with.
O’Halloran had been involved in the Irish movie , “ Adam and Paul“, I think he may have acted in it but I have not seen the movie , he may have also written the script , I’m really not sure. The film is about two drug addicts . It’s a ‘day in the life ‘ kind of thing and we are invited to watch as they wander around the streets of Dublin looking for their next fix……It’s a comedy…… Before making the movie O’Halloran had followed drug addicts ( Junkies , as he called them) around the streets and he found it all a great laugh… We know this because he tells us so and he was having a good laugh while recounting the story.
He told a story about two young women , obviously stoned out of their minds , in the middle of O’Connell Street fighting over a choc-ice. He mimicked their voices ……he laughed as he recounted how these women (we can imagine them ) fought in the street like two zombies…..and this was just one of his stories…. He had lots of them , he went to great pains to explain to us how you could have great fun following human derelicts on the streets of Dublin… For , what seemed to me like an eternity , this man laughed and invited us to laugh at the spectacle of those ghost like figures we see wandering the streets of our capital city…..He went on and on ……while still laughing he told us about the young man trying to hold a cigarette in his hand while a needle was hanging from his hand at the same time…..and he laughed and laughed yet again. It was relentless….I sat in my room horrified and sickened hardly believing what I was hearing…..and still it went on …..and on… At one point there was a reference to Beckett and the absurd….but that didn’t diminish the horror of what I was hearing…..
- And O’Searcaigh ? …People keep referring to the fact that he did not feel that he was actually doing anything wrong. …How he was , in his own way , rather innocent….even vulnerable. They wonder why he seemed only too willing to hang himself in front of the camera……We all know the story by now.
But the truth of all of this is really quite simple. O’Searcaigh , like O’Halloran is a moral degenerate. These men have no moral compass to guide them. They are not even aware of the sin they commit. They are , in their own way , truly innocent….but in the wrong way….They do not understand , indeed are incapable of understanding that it is wrong , yes wrong to laugh at , or exploit those who are less fortunate than ourselves. And those who feel the need to say we must not judge in this way (they’ll judges us as ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ at the drop of a hat themselves) are no less morally compromised. These media hacks , the paid minions of their media bosses attempt to impose a new morality. Far from being independent they are the lumpen proletaritat in the service of the New European Corporate State. Their morality is ‘modern’ and , when necessary , flexible…….and you need a new morality when trying to justify the ‘free movement of labour’ itself the harbinger of the New European Corporate State. These , the paid servants of their press baron bosses warn of the dangers of racism while our most fundamental rights are being negated by the day…..without as much as a whisper from them. The right to strike abolished for all practical purposes as is the right to free speech….the homeless litter the streets , the sick and aged are treated with contempt , Ireland becomes an economy in place of a country and they have nothing to say…….nothing that is apart from the stock phrases , ‘HOMOPHOBIC’ and ‘RACIST’………….and like O’Searcaight and O’Halloran they are well paid…….and they know how to get an Arts Council grant….in the past we had a name for people like this ……They are the New Ireland……and they have the confidence (arrogance) that goes with new wealth……alongside their masters they have their heads in the trough and are feeding with a frenzy…..
As I said many times , O’Searcaigh is not the real issue and never was. The real issue is both simple and complex at the same time and has to do with the society we inhabit. It has to do with our values , our morality if you want to call it that. But it also has a lot to do with power and how it is exercised. It has to do with a new morality for a New Ireland and how to sell that morality……
The moral relativism of O’Searcaigh did not come from nowhere. He , and the many , the very many who stand by him are a product of the society they live in. Our education system educated these people. And none of this is an accident. It hasn’t just happened. There is , as indeed there always is , a very real logic behind all of this……there is an inevitability about it all….
………..’and we have seen it all before. We’ve seen how , in Hitler’s Germany , millions of good decent people voted into power one of the most evil men in history……and we have asked ourselves how these people could not only let it happen but be willing participants in the affair…and even while we ponder the question our poor , sick and vulnerable lie for days in hospital corridors….with every passing minute our society becomes more uncaring….the rich get even richer while the poor are marginalised…..there is a new brutality in the air…..we have become selfish…..We have become both liberal and intolerant at the same time… we are , if we but knew if , the new barbarians…
No , O’Searcaigh is not important….and his poetry even less so. He is the product of a new Ireland but more importantly the product of a new Europe…..Had he been born twenty years earlier he might have been a Christian Brother. O’Halloran will continue with his movie career….no one will condemn him , no one will point to the obscene racism behind his warped sense of humour…..The journalists of Ireland will continue to prostitute themselves in the pursuit of advancement in their trade…..Tubridy will , no doubt , continue with his radio programme……he will I imagine ,warn us of the danger of racism from time to time…..and he’ll be well paid for it too…
…………………and the landlords of Ireland will smile……..
”Sure isn’t it a great little country”.
You can find a podcast of The Tubridy Show HERE. It may take a few minutes to download depending on the speed of you internet connnection.
Cathal O’Searcaigh Eoghan Harris Fairytale of Kathmandu Debate
February 11, 2008
Writing about the issues raised by the movie , “Fairytale of Kathmandu” and the poet Cathal O’Searchaigh , Eoghan Harris in the Independent’s anyalsis page treats us to a few pearls of wisdom or what passes for wisdom with those like Harris.
Speaking of the poet Maira Mhac an tSaoi’s comments on the Joe Duffy Show he refers to her “forensic tour de force ” !! And what was her contribution to the debate ? Well ,she suggested that O’Chainnin’s had betrayed a friend and acted for mercenary reasons …You can read the whole thing yourself but that’s what it all comes down to. Harris is obviously a man who is easily impressed.
He then goes on to tell us that Eamon Delaney has let the cat out of the bag about the Rape Crisis Centre and that …..wait for it …….(drum roll ) …the Rape Crisis Centre has a feminist agenda…. not only is this man easily impressed but he’s also a bit behind on what the dogs in the street have been yelping about for years.
Now in case you think I’m being unfair to Harris here’s that link again (LINK) and oh , by the way Mr. Harris did manage to overlook one thing that Maira Mhac an sTaoi said on the radio , ie that young oriental boys were not as sexually innocent as they might seem. (and we all know what she really means , don’t we ). But if you feel that I might be misrepresenting her then just listen for yourself. RTE Liveline Podcasts .But the wonderful Harris is not a man to do things by half. In for a penny in for a pound. And so in true Irish fashion he drags up old history…….he opens his mouth but forgets to engage the grey matter first and thus comes out with this bit of insight …..(another drumroll ….)…
He tells us that Roger Casement ’s reputation would have been ruined if a camera crew had been around in his day. He tells us that Casement had ’sordid’ sex with boys and then goes on to say that he (Casement ) went on to show dauntless courage fighting colonial power. Now it’s difficult to ruin someones reputation if they never had a good reputation in the first place. And perhaps Harris was a very stupid little boy and swallowed all the propaganda he was exposed to in his childhood history classes but he should not assume that we were all as stupid as him. I can only speak for myself but I cannot remember , even as a very young child , believing that Casement or Collins were anything more than thugs and psychopaths. True , the Christian Brother of Westland Row tried to convince me that these were Great Men but I didn’t believe it then and certainly don’t believe it now. Now don’t get me wrong , I’m not saying that I was particularly clever or anything like that , it’s just that I never was a complete ’thick’. Casement’s speech in the dock was a fine speech no doubt but he was talking about himself….and he’s not the first to use this world of ours as his own plaything …as a platform upon which to carve out his own destiny. History ,as we all know is written by the victor. …..and the fact that it was a Catholic school system that tried to impress upon us the virtues of Casement ( while beating , humiliating and abusing vulnerable children ) should be enough to make us wary of accepting THEIR heroes uncritically.
Unfortunatly people like Harris control the media and so dictate the level of debate. Have you notice how all these people keep referring to the fact that O’Searcaigh is a poet ? We all know he’s a poet so why do they keep mentioning it. Just last night on the radio I heard some media people refer to him almost as a tortured soul. You all know what I mean. Why this assumption of an almost spiritual nature to the man ?. Did anyone feel the need to ascribe these characteristics to Michael Jackson. No they didn’t , in spite of the fact that they both have presented themselves to the world in much the same manner. Jackson like O’Searcaigh is seen as ’naive’ almost childlike in his openness …even the body language is simular…and then there’s Garry Glitter. Has anyone tried to defend Glitter? Or look beyond the headlines to consider the man himself ? Or his predicament ?
When Eoghan Harris writes about O’Searcaigh he is of course really trying to tell us something about himself. He is telling us to look at him. To take notice of the ‘liberal’ man who understands the issues. He has his own agenda and it’s quite transparent…. But like O’Searcaigh , he has misjudged the mood of the nation. He has also misjudged the intelligence of it’s people. …..
I have just found this quote from Pauline Bewick , one of O’Sharkey’s defenders , and well know artist. “ Rapists and paedophiles should be castrated “. She would no doubt say that O’Sharkey is none of these but the tone of this remark , the uncompromising nature of it is very different from that which she uses when speaking of O’Sharkey. This extreme right wing sentiment is in sharp contrast to her liberal attitude when speaking of exploitation in Nepal.
Fairytale of Kathmandu . Neasa Ni Chainain. Maira Mhac an tSaoi. Cathal O’Searcaigh. Child Abuse Ireland . Denial and the Poet.
February 5, 2008
The film Fairytale of Kathmandu by the young Irish director Neasa Ni Chainain , which is due to be shown as part of the Irish Film Festival this month and later to be broadcast by RTE television has opened a new chapter in the history of child abuse in Ireland.
The film was originally planned as a tribute to the poet Cathal O’Searcaigh but the director (who is a neighbour and friend of O’Searcaigh ) found herself witnessing the grooming of young men and boys by O’Searcaigh for sexual purposes and so it ended up a very different movie than what she had planned for.
For the full story behind this you should go to the web site for the film at Fairytale of Kathmandu and click on the ‘press’ tab. Sharkey (his english name ) admits in the movie to having sex with many young men and boys (he uses the term ‘boys’ himself ) and claims that as he puts it , his ‘door is open to everyone’ .
But my reason for writing this post is not so much Sharkey himself or the movie but more about the reaction , or rather one particular reaction to it in Ireland. The film was being discussed today on RTE radio’s ‘Liveline’ otherwise known as ‘The Joe Duffy Show’. While discussing the issues involved Fiona Neary of the Rape Crisis Centre was making a general point about the innocence in sexual matters of young people in Nepal and how we in Ireland really could not fully comprehend just how innocent young boys are in that society etc. A friend of Sharkey’s and a fellow poet Maira Mhac an tSaoiwho was one of Duffeys’ guests took issue with this. She had been defending Sharkey and had accused the director of the movie of betraying a friend etc but at one point she said ” I find it difficult to believe (ie Asian boys being innocent) . ” LITTLE Asian boys are brought up to know about sex. ” The very clear and indeed only possible implication of this remark was that the victims were to blame.
We have all heard this kind of thing before. There are certain people (and not a few of them women ) in Ireland who , when paedophile priests were first exposed denied that such a thing was true and when that became untenable turned their attention to the child victims and questioned the ‘innocence’ of these same victims. It’s an old trick and a dirty one at that.
The Irish Gardai are now investigatingthe matters raised by the movie and no doubt we will hear more about all this in the near future. It’s by no means clear that Sharkey will end up where he belongs….there are issues here that go way beyond the case of Sharkey himself and there are many in the Irish media who will be running to Sharkey’s aid….!!!!!. But what must be said , and stated clearly is that shifting the blame to the victim is never acceptable. The moral bankrupcy which is represented by people like Maira Mhac an tSaoi is something that has been inflicted on children , vulnerable children in Ireland for far too long. Those like Mhac an tSaoi have no role or place in a civilised society. If she had honor she might do the honorable thing……but that would require courage…..and a conscience.
For a fuller understanding of the situation in Nepal see ….”A Situational Anyalsis of Child Sex Tourism in Nepal “.
UPDATE: Since I posted this story the supporters (and there are many ) of Sharkey have been rushing to defend him. Fellow poets and neighbours have been telling us what a wonderful man he is and making much of the fact that what he is involved in may not be illegal in Nepal. It’s quite frightening to hear such people ……they speak of him as a good neighbour , a pillar of the artistic community…..in short we are hearing the same mantra that was put forward while Christian Brothers and Catholic priests were destroying the lives of children in schools and orphanages throughout Ireland. If ever there was an instance of moral relativism then surely this is it. Thousands of Irish men travel to places such as Nepal and Thailand on a regular basis and do so for the sole purpose of having sex with vulnerable young people. The issue here is not only a matter of legality but also one of morality. But it seems that if you a famous poet or a good neighbour these thing just don’t matter.
17 February 08. Just now on the Joe Duffey Show the Irish artist Pauline Bewick has come to the defense of O’Sharkey. She is at the moment working to illustrate a book of his. The entire artistic community of Ireland seems to be falling over itself to protect Sharkey with a total disregard for the victims. She claims her support for him is based on the merit of his poetry and her ‘gut feeling’. She has also described him (as many have) as a very innocent man. She then brought up the age of the victims and the fact that it may not have been illegal. I find myself lost for words. How many more Irish people are going to come forward trying to justify a 50 plus year old man having sex with young boys. It must be stressed here that a sixteen year old boy in Nepal is about as mature in sexual matters as a ten year old Irish boy. Paula Bewick like many others uses the logic that as O’Sharkey is a friend of hers then he cannot be a bad person. In short they and she are using the same argument used by those who stood by as Irish priests and Christian Brother abused vulnerable children here in Ireland. As I said when I first put this post up on my blog , there is more going on here than concerns Cathal O’Scearchaigh…..there’s a hell of a lot more going on and it doesn’t reflect at all well on our Irish society. If the movie ‘Fairytale of Kathmandu’ was about an unemployed man or someone like that none of this would be happening. And the fact that O’Sharkey has been outed by , so to speak , a fellow member of the artistic community is not without significance. And in Ireland the arts and media often overlap which might explain the relative quietness of most of the media in Ireland on this whole matter. Hot Press is due to publish something next week about this business and the author is ‘very angry’ at how Sharkey has been treated while Gay Community News is claiming that it’s O’Sharkey who is being exploited….But I predicted as much when I first posted this in my blog……and I’m not physic or anything like that. Modern Ireland , and the self proclaimed ‘liberal’ elite does not like having what it see’s as one of it’s own being put in the spotlight like this. And the reason is of course that they feel , consciously or otherwise that it’s they who are being judged. Indeed , indeed and as I also said earlier, this story is about a lot more than Cathal O’Searcaigh.
Seamus Heaney Robert Lowell Elvis Presley. An Exercise in Name Dropping.
November 28, 2007
Some time ago , 25 years ago that is…..I met the poet Seamus Heaney. I never met Robert Lowell or Elvis but like I say , I did meet Heaney.
I wrote to him , as I said , about 25 years ago. I was having trouble getting some of his books , not his regular editions but privately printed limited editions of his , and so I wrote to him to see if he could help me in some way. I did not really expect to get a reply so I was delighted when he wrote back and suggested that I call down to see him. (I live , perhaps a mile and a half from Sandymount where his home is.)
As I was walking up Sandymount Road with Dublin Bay on my left I happened to meet him in the street. It was about 12:00 noon , sometime in late Summer and there was a pleasant sea breeze as we met and I shook his hand. I remember the first question I asked him. “What’s it like to be famous , to be the Elvis Presley of poetry ” ? Now that may seem a somewhat odd question or even a foolish one so let me explain.
I could of course have asked him some ‘profound’ question about the Greek poets perhaps but the truth of the matter is that I wasn’t really interested in his opinion of the Greeks or any other poets for that matter. Why after all would I be interested in another man’s opinion when I’ve got my own ? But I was interested to know what it was like to be famous. I had never met anyone really famous before and let’s face it , we are bombarded with images of the famous from the moment we become conscious of the wider world. So I asked him , “what’s it like to be famous “. And it turned out to be a good question because while still yet in the street he began to talk about just that.
He talked the of fact that he hadn’t actually made any money from the books he had published ( five at that point in time). That apart from his salary teaching he had not made any money from his fame at all. He told me how much he had paid for his house ( he got in just before the prices started to move upwards) and what it cost to put his kids through school and that sort of thing. We were walking along as he spoke and I think he was talking to himself as much as to me….he spoke of how it could be awkward , even embarrassing to be famous. He explained that he often might be in company with a fellow poet ( a better poet than him as he put it) and people would talk to him , ask his opinion while ignoring the sometimes older and better poet at his side. He spoke of the jealousies and enmities that it brought with it.
When we got to his house he brought me up to his study , a small room overlooking Dublin Bay , and we talked about poetry and poets. It was a pleasant experience apart that is from the smell. The smell , I hasten to say came not from his room but from the beach beyond his window. The sewage from all over Dublin City is deposited in Dublin Bay and in the summer it smells…it really smells. While I was there he was signing the sheets for his limited edition , “Poems and a Memoir”. Just the sheets of paper , the book itself had not been bound at this point. As I say , it was a really nice experience and before I left he gave me some of his own poems , drafts that is , with revisions in his own hand.
I called down to his house two or three times after that ( he invited me). To be honest I cannot remember what we talked about but I suppose it had to do with poetry. But I can remember one conversation….. We were sitting in his kitchen. By ‘we’ I mean there were two other people there , one a fellow who had something to do with Field Day Publishing and the other guy was some artist who’s name I have since forgotten.( I have a long standing interest in Irish art so the fact that I cannot even remember his name will give you an indication as to the nature of the ‘artist’). Well , there we were , the four of us , with a bottle of wine on the table and the sun streaming in the window. The conversation was ( as we Irish say) terrific. Somewhere along the way Heaney told a joke about Robert Lowell. It seems that when he was introduced to Lowell the American just looked at him and said , “My friends call me Robert , but you can call me Bob”. Ok , it’s not that funny but it sounds a lot better after a couple of glasses of wine. I was sitting with my back to the window , my chair slightly back from the table , almost a spectator and it occurred to me that this was the kind of little anecdote that biographers love to record.
Later , as I walked home I couldn’t help but think that yes , yes that little anecdote might well find it’s way into some biography of Seamus Heaney but I would most certainly have been airbrushed out of it. A sobering thought but a true one nonetheless.
And I did in fact later meet one other famous person , a serial killer called Dennis Nilsen……. Oh , and I passed Bono one day on O’Connell Bridge but I didn’t stop to talk to him so I guess that really doesn’t count.
You can find an interview with Heaney on Youtube by following this link.
I have come to you to greet you
To tell you that the sun is up:
The sun’s hot light now waits to greet you
And trembles through the leaves and sap;
To tell you that the forest is awake,
Ferociously awake ……..
( trans. James Green copyright 1982)
Afanasy Fet was born in 1820 in Russia. His father was a landlord and member on the nobility but as Afanasy was illegitimate he could not inherit his father’s estates or title. He attended Moscow University and in 1845 joined the military. As a young man he met and fell in love with Mariya Lazich. Shortly after they met she was burnt to death in her bed. Both Mariya’s death and his own exclusion from the nobility were to dominate his life until he died in1892. Fet spent most of his life trying to succeed in his ambition of becoming a member of the nobility and this was his only reason for joining the military. When he eventually received his commission the law which would have allowed him to become a member was changed so that he now had to reach the rank of major. This was to happen to him several times before he finally succeeded at the age of 54. He was regarded by many as a rather ridiculous figure and years later he would make a point of walking around Moscow in the middle of a hot oppressive summer in the full dress uniform of a court chamberlain. Just so that people might realize that he was a member of the nobility.
Apart from his poetry he also translated Schopenhauer. Tolstoy would give his unpublished work to Fet for his opinion and approval. Mandelstam considered him to be the greatest Russian poet of all time. He believed in ‘ art for art’s sake’ and felt that poetry should reflect only itself. Because of this he avoided any reference to the outside world in his poetry , most of which was regarded as ‘nature poetry’ and wrote mainly of the landscape of his day to day life. Much of this poetry while nominally about nature is really concerned with Mariya Lazich….
In a wooded and neglected region
The midnight snowstorm swirled
A branch sizzling on the fire.
We sat together…..
Little of his work is available in english. A slim volume from which these extracts is taken was published by Angel Book in the UK in 1982 with the title ” I have come to you to greet you”. A very fine volume of criticism ” The Imagination of Spring: the poetry of Afanasy Fet” was published in 1966 by Yale University Press. It contains translations of his poetry but these are literal word for word translations but even so are well worth reading…..
But beneath me in a springlike ripple
Moved the resonant earth.
Relatively few people have ever heard of Fet and fewer still have read him but he is regarded as the greatest lyric poet that Russia has produced and perhaps the greatest the world has seen.
Sound advice….Patrick Kavanagh
January 20, 2007
The poet’s task is not to solve the riddle
Of Man and God but buckleap on a door
And grab his screeching female by her middle
To the music of a melodian (preferably), ….
Patrick Kavanagh.
