'Four Poems by Derek Mahon Essay\r'

'quartette Poems by Derek Mahon INTRODUCTION Derek Mahon belongs to the same times of Northern Ireland poets as Seamus Heaney. But, w here(predicate)as creationy of Heaney’s rimes are rooted firmly in the rural landscape of Ulster where he grew up, Mahon’s metrical compositions reflect his childhood spent in Belfast. His familiar pastures were the streets of the city, the Harland and Wolff shipyard where his g-andfather and father deceaseed, and the flax-spinning factory where his buzz off worked.\r\nLater on, Mahon would come to study at Trinity College Dublin and from at that place he spread his wings to travel and work in many different places, from France, Canada and America, to capital of the United indexdom and Kinsale in Co. Cork. , •”DAY TRIP TO DONEGAL” pull up in shift, in both meaning and feeling, that :sxes place between the first and final lines of ~ s song makes it memorable. The title :=e~s banausic: twenty-four hour perio d Trip to Donegal suggests :- :~ :od twenty-four hourss out at the seaboard or correct a inform trip with classmates and teachers. ~â€~ opening stanza is conversational in woodland.\r\nI :†,al at his seaside destination, the poet s n familiar surroundings. in that location were to be seen” and â€Å"as ever” the hills â€Å"a deeper young/Than anywhere in the : : †seems at this percentage point that we are r: †r :: voice a pleasant day at the seaside in Donegal with the poet. However, on the nose as we . †rev. ~”~ comfortable with this expectation, -:::••• appears. We are disturbed by the 2. Deration in the final line and the discover : ^reduces: â€Å"… the grave/Grey of the sea Me grwnmer in that enclave. ” ††: †: _s -â€Å"rial line of the opening stanza , a similar scenario in stanza two.\r\nThe poet watches the fishing-boats arriving back at the pier with their catch. This famil iar scene is much expound in attractive price by songwriters and painters. But here Mahon startles us in the second line by describing the catch as â€Å"A wriggling glimmer offish”. The reciprocation â€Å"writhing” is very vivid. The fish are seen as suffering and this nonion perishs more intemperate in the concluding lines of the stanza where he sees them â€Å"flopping rough the deck/In attitudes of agony and brokenheartedness”. A figment is told round Mahon as an only child who spent a lot of time alone.\r\nHis imagination had surrender rein and in the bicycle pretermit in the garden at lieu the Mahons also kept combust. Apparently the male child Derek Mahon suffered guilt when he went to the shed to build his bicycle. He matte up pity for the coal which was, to him, imprisoned in that dark, algid, shed. His forgiveness was bare even then; he felt sorry for the coal! In Day Trip to Donegal we see that the poet’s day is changed b y the sight of the caught fish. He feels compassion for them in their dying moments. In stanza common chord the return move to Belfast is described.\r\nThis verse form is poised between two worlds †the seaside one in rural Donegal and the urban one in Belfast. Have you detect how Mahon chooses to describe his arrival back in Belfast? â€Å"We changed d suffer into suburbs/Sunk in a sleep no gale-force lead-in disturbs. ” There is a suggestion here of a â€Å"tamer” world than the natural state gale-beaten one of Donegal. The phrase â€Å"changed down” refers to the gear-change of the car, tho it also shows how the poet is struck by the remnant between the rural and the urban worlds he has experienced on that break-danceicular day.\r\nThe quiescency suburbs seem slow and quiet later onward the drama of the Donegal landscape. examen ; Career transfer 241 I t/2 _i O Z LU LU h-U LU U Nightmare Stanza four picks up again on the disturbing imaginati on of stanza two. There is an intense feeling of bratwurst here as the poet rec exclusivelys his dream after his day out at the seaside. In his nightmare, the sea is seen as a tidy force of destruction. We loafer be chilled by his description of the sea performing its â€Å" incomputable erosions” †â€Å"Spilling into the skull. ” The combination of backchats here is unchewable: â€Å"immeasurable erosions” and the alliteration of â€Å"spilling” and â€Å"skull”.\r\nThe choice of the word â€Å"erosion” is worth noting here. It suggests eating outdoor(a) at something †the action of the sea on the coastline over many years. Why does the poet draw a parallel between himself and the wear away coastline, at the mercy of the infinite flak of the sea? Could this be an oblique abduce to the political circumstances in which he lived in Northern Ireland? We remember that Donegal was described in stanza one as a â€Å"green enclav e”. He has travelled there from Belfast †another(prenominal) political entity to which he returns after his day across the border.\r\nIn the nightmare he is the helpless victim at the mercy of the relentless sea. It mutters â€Å"its bane” †the poet does not enjoy a calm sleep after his day-trip to Donegal. Instead he has a resistant of nightmare, a surrealistic vision which is frightening and sinister. The nightmarish journey continues into the final stanza. Now the sea has become a metaphor for the poet’s own view of his support. He is alone and drifting, has not taken enough caution to disallow this danger and feels surrounded on all sides by the â€Å"vindictive wind and rain down”, i. . , the malevolent forces that control his life and which cannot be placated. The poem ends on a wrinkle of hopelessness and despair. There is no foreshadow of rescue. His predicament recalls that of the fish described in stanza two †â€Å"flopp ing about the deck/In attitudes of agony and heartbreak”. • â€Å"ECCLESIASTES” The title of this poem situates it immediately in the context of religion †Ecclesiastes being the title of a intensity in the Old Testament, utilize much by preacher mans in their sermons.\r\nThe context of the poem is the Ulster of the religious preachers and the churchmen which Mahon knew very well, being an Ulster Protestant by birth. The opening three lines of the poem are full of feeling. We notice the repeat of God and the rhythm created by â€Å"purist” and â€Å"prude”, and â€Å"wiles and smiles”. Mahon is imagining himself as a member of the sermon classes and he tries in this poer-look destinationly at his identity as an Ulster Protestant. There is self-mockery in h s _s= of the phrase â€Å"purist infinitesimal puritan”.\r\nThe preacher is narrow mind (little) and rigid his attitudes †a â€Å"purist” puritan would be 3 extreme version of an ordinary puritan *^ would have been very inexorable in religious :. -•’ moral matters. There is mockery and contempt as he describes the preache’ (Ecclesiastes) as â€Å"God-chosen” and â€Å"God-fearing”. He sees himself as occupying tr-e high moral ground spell at the same t~-= basing his moral philosophy on fear rather than sincere conviction. The world inhabited by the Ecclesiastes (preachers) is a grim one. The images in ine 4 and 5 convey this most powerfully.\r\nThe choice of the word â€Å"dank” (meaning da-x sr damp and cold) for the churches and the â€Å"level(p) up swings” on Sundays paint a joyless picture. Sunday was a in particular gloorny ~ in Protestant Ulster as it was stringently designated for prayer and church-going. Pleasure of any kind was frowned on. Marc then contrasts this life-denying way of lrvr>f with the real life of the world ††â€Å"the light up i the worldà ¢â‚¬Â. He mentions how such(prenominal) a rigic code of behaviour allows those Churchmer to deflect the humanising interaction with women and the â€Å"bright eyes of children”.\r\nHe continues with this train of thought in lines to 16. His tang is very critical. He sees tr-e preacher as using his public morality tc 2*c the real challenges of life †the call on eac of us â€Å"to gain and forgive”. The red bandana and thwart and the ban? c referred to represent the antithesis of the preacher’s life. The red is a vigorous contrast n the â€Å"dork doors” mentioned before and the bandana and stick would be used on journe to brighter, livelier places than the dark r of Antrim which are washed by the cole â€Å"January rains”.\r\nThis dark, cold place is the natural habitat of the preacher. He is following in the tradition of his forebears †â€Å"the heaped sculpture of your fathers”. Here he can â€Å"close one eye and be king ”. This is an allusion to Erasmus, who once said: â€Å"In the province of the blind the one-eyed man is King”. Is this a reference to the closed mm and the bigotry of Mahon’s Ulster? The preacher can lord it over the ordinary peoc whose â€Å" sober washing flaps” in the housing estates. They are credulous. But Mahon’s preacher has nothing to offer them. The ft vision of the poem is filled with contemp 42 Exam ; Career Guide cts the preacher â€Å" wicked with rhetoric” forth to the captive audition yet lothing whatever to offer them †ng nothing under the sun”. eamus Heaney writes about Ulster :es in the memory of The Forge, in scape of Bogland, The Harvest Bow and Mahon, on the other hand, has a vision of Ulster †and he shares >n with us in Ecclesiastes. It is a place ;tants and Puritans and Preachers. He :dges that this is part of his own oo, and we find that he has a very ew of the narrow, life-denying f the fi nish which formed him. IT SHOULD BE” m, the mindset of another type of explored. This time it is that of the jrderer †who kills another man ie sees as a just cause. When ;ntions the Moon in the Yellow peevishness reminded of the Irish Civil War. :hat phone was written by Denis ;et in 1927. Its story is of a man e who act to blow up a rootage ydroelectric station which was and was a symbol of the age Irish Free State. Blake was shot by ;gt;f the Free State called Lanigan. The = ships officer of the Free State is the ir in this poem, as he justifies his nd even takes pride in it. : of Murder titeous tone is struck at the\r\n'