ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> <html lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head> <title>Joan McBreen : Poetry</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <link href="css/basic.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/> <link media="print" href="css/print.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/> <link media="screen" href="css/joanstyle.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"/> </head> <body id="basic"> <div id="ph"> <div id="top"><img src="images/bgh.jpg" width="757" height="158" alt="Joan McBreen"/></div> <div id="middlex"> <div id="no"> <div id="nav"><a href="index.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="home">home</a> <span class="divider"><b>|</b>&nbsp;</span> <a href="biography.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="biography">biography</a> <span class="divider"><b>|</b>&nbsp;</span> <a href="anthologies.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="anthologies">anthologies</a> <span class="divider"><b>|</b>&nbsp;</span> <a href="news.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="news">news</a><span class="divider"><b>|</b>&nbsp;</span> <a href="reviews.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="reviews">reviews</a> <span class="divider"><b>|</b>&nbsp;</span> <a href="gallery.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="gallery">gallery</a> <span class="divider"><b>|</b>&nbsp;</span> <span id="readings"><a href="readings.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="contact">&nbsp;<span>readings</span>&nbsp;</a></span> <span class="divider"><b>|</b>&nbsp;</span> <span id="contact"><a href="contact.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="contact">&nbsp;<span>contact</span>&nbsp;</a></span> <span class="hide">|</span> </div> </div> </div> <div id="middley"> <div id="c1"> <div class="homebox"> <h3>Reviews</h3><a href="reviews.html" onfocus="this.blur()">1</a> | <a href="reviews_2.html" onfocus="this.blur()">2</a> | <a href="reviews_3.html" onfocus="this.blur()">3</a> | <a href="reviews_4.html" onfocus="this.blur()">4</a> | <a href="reviews_5.html" onfocus="this.blur()">5</a> 6 <img src="images/watchful.gif" width="178" height="176" alt="The Watchful Heart" class="cutoutimage"/> <h1><a href='http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2010/07/guest-review-brinton-on-new-irish.html'>Guest Review: Brinton On A New Irish Anthology </a></h1> <p style="text-align:justify;">Ian Brinton reviews <a href="http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=14&amp;a=71">The Watchful Heart, A New Generation of Irish Poets</a><br /> edited and presented by Joan McBreen</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> If you are trying to encourage diners to try a newly-opened restaurant which you rate very highly then there is little point in commenting on each dish on the menu since you will end up with one, or at the most two sentences, serving a descriptive purpose that could have been put there by the restaurateur. With this in mind I have decided to give an account of this remarkably fine new anthology by concentrating upon two very different poets whose poetry and prose appears in that  box where sweets compacted lie . </p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> Geoff Ward, the Vice-Principal of Royal Holloway, London has an article in PN Review192 (March/April 2010) in which he suggests that  Words can describe, evoke, suggest, delineate, propose, haunt do all manner of things except be the thing or feeling or concept to which they refer. These words are themselves ghosts of another article written by the same critic in 1989 where he referred to words as  chasing, describing, shadowing a reality (Archeus 2). Paul Perry s prose contribution to this new anthology is titled  Ghosts and it follows three remarkable poems which range from  Dawn Sun , a memory of a journey from Budapest to Prague,  Visiting Hours , an account of his brother s illness and hospitalization, and  The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance which recreates the long dead voice of John White, an artist friend of Sir Walter Raleigh who had attempted to found a community in North Carolina in the 1580s. As Perry puts it  Each poem is ghosted by another and he pays homage to the New York poet Reginald Shepherd who died in 2008 whose work he had been reading whilst composing these three pieces. With that word  ghosts in the air it is no surprise to read Perry s comment on his own work:</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> I want the poems to be a  field of action where a voice s authority is refuted by the possibilities of contending inflexions and intonations and accents from other presences.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> The opening of  The Last Falcon and Small Ordinance confronts us with mystery and loss:</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> No one was there when I returned, not a soul<br /> though each one of the settlers personal effects remained:<br /> some wrapped in dust, some overgrown with grass.<br /> Axe, file, compass. Scuppet, dice and pipe.<br /><br /> Iron pots rusted. Maps and books were spoiled by rain.<br /> Words sank into the soil never to be heard again:<br /> words like love and peace. </p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> The assertive opening line offers us presence:  No one was there, as though the ghosts of those now gone still linger in their belongings, the  personal effects . The sense of distance grows with the reference to time passing and this itself moves from the fairly recent ( wrapped in dust ) to the more settled and long-gone atmosphere of  Iron pots rusted . As the symbols of civilization disintegrate and the words in the books and maps become spoiled the sinking of words into the ground is more than physical, it is as though they dissolve leaving only an echo of what had once been aspiration:  love and peace .</p> <p style="text-align:justify;">  Visiting Hours deals again with ghosts, the legacies of what went before in the history of a troubled Ireland as the poet s brother remains in hospital sifting through the differences between the real and the merely imagined:</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> You talked about how<br /> they kept you against your will, how they<br /> tried to drown you. I turn the radio on,<br /><br /> but it serves no distraction and so I drive,<br /> drive on with the thought that this then is the legacy<br /> of the conflict, or one of its legacies.<br /> That after the bombings, the shootings, the warfare<br /><br /> and ceasefires, after peace and reconciliation,<br /> what we, what some of us, are left with<br /> is a man in a hospital bed, afraid for his life .</p> <p style="text-align:justify;">  Drive on of course because to not do so would be to immerse oneself in the indulgent world of regret that leads to the softness of tears but not the interrogation of the past with which the poem concludes. That said, the final lines tell us that  no matter how much we beseech you/or each other, we ll never really know echoing the movement of Pound s Canto 93:</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> There must be incognita<br /> and in sea-caves<br /> un lume pien di spiriti<br /> and of memories,<br /> Shall two know the same in their knowing?</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> Nuala Ní Chonchúir s three poems possess a warm immediacy, a complete involvement with words making a luscious attempt to bridge that gap between abstract communication and felt experience. The removal of two letters, two symbols, from the word  foetal and the inclusion of a repeated  a leaves us with  fatal : the loss of all the  good work of growth within the female body:</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> we are fastened to our bed<br /> you curl to the curl of me<br /> unshaped to a shape that fits<br /><br /> we sleep, curved into one<br /> and my body begins<br /> the slow, good work<br /><br /> work that weakens me,<br /> balloons me with<br /> both hope and dread<br /><br /> then, after three months,<br /> the heartsick, two-letter slip,<br /> from foetal to fatal</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> There is a remarkably direct simplicity in this evocation of growth where the  unshaped becomes form mirroring the creative act of writing a poem where the concrete and discrete is a measure of what words lose because they are not, as Geoff Ward said, the things to which they refer. That gap between perceiver and perceived, the word and the experience, is delicately woven into the fading of the experience of Narcissus as he  trumpets his pleasure with himself whilst paying homage to his own beauty. This masturbatory act is swiftly followed by the recognition of those blemishes which lie between his dream and the reality:</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> His image is mottled by water-scurf and flies,<br /> like the foxing on an ancient mirror<br /> where mercury and tin have slipped apart. </p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> Nuala Ní Chonchúir s prose accompaniment to her three poems celebrates  a great freedom& in talking about the body through poetry, choosing the right words and set-up to explore personal and intimate moments and there is a passionate sense of  thereness about her writing.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> This is all just a hint of the menu of twenty-four Irish poets who were born in the last fifty years and I urge readers to taste for themselves the world of delight contained in this anthology, the title of which is taken from Derek Mahon:</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> The lines flow from the hand unbidden<br /> and the hidden source is the watchful heart.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> Ian Brinton is a British critic and scholar. His recent books include Contemporary Poetry from Cambridge, and a collection of essays on JH Prynne. He reviews regularly for Eyewear.</p> <!--p><b>Ireland, Oaxaca, and the Soundscape</b><br/> 20 March 2010 by <a href="http://molossus.wordpress.com/author/molossus/" title="Posts by molossus">molossus</a> </p> <p style="text-align:justify;"><strong><em>The Watchful Heart: A New Generation of Irish Poets</em>, ed. Joan McBreen (Salmon Poetry/Dufour Editions) </strong><strong>&euro;18/$32.95</strong></p> <p style="text-align:justify;">Acclaimed anthologist and poet Joan McBreen has compiled a selection of younger Irish poets, the majority born in the sixties. Most names will be unfamiliar to even quite avid readers of poetry in America, but include Loius dePaor (in translation from the Irish), Mary O'Donoghue, Patrick Quinn, and Nuala N&iacute; Chonch&uacute;ir. Despite its origin in a Derek Mahon poem, the title retains some triteness: it is hard, in America at least, to seriously consider any volume of poetry with the word "heart" in its title.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;">In her introduction McBreen writes that these poets should be considered part of the ongoing dialogue of Irish poetry and poetics. Owing to the limited space allotted each poet a mere three poems the book reads just like that, a sort of introductory conversation with the poets themselves, all who have published at least two books, none of whom the reader can fully comprehend here. Unlike Graywolf's <em>New British </em>and <em>New European </em> anthologies, which are generally more generous in their selection of poems (especially the former), <em>The Watchful Heart</em> does not offer any critical introductions, however brief, but instead begins each selection with a simple biographical note.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;">Like several other UK anthologies notably Carcanet's <em>OxfordPoets</em> series McBreen's pairs original poems with brief essays by the poets. The essays are particularly noteworthy, often contextualizing the poetry that precedes them or more satisfyingly expounding on topics ranging from the relationship between poetry and work to poetry in the electronic age to Patrick Chapman's "Fortune Cookies" aphorisms, a sort of Irish <em>Sargentville Notebooks</em> without Strand's whimsical surrealism.</p> <p style="text-align:justify;"> The poetry itself is contemporary, fully engaged in conversation with European, American, and world poetry. Irish in origin but universal in theme, the poems within make for good, enjoyable reading. Like the best anthologies, one can open to any page and find something worthwhile. Leontia Flynn, in her poem "Art and Wine," writes,</p> <blockquote> <p style="text-align:justify;">And would you, I mused, perhaps understand me more,<br /> if I could, for a single second, shut the fuck up?</p> </blockquote> <p style="text-align:justify;">Though in context the question is certainly rhetorical, I speak to the included poets as well as their anthologist when I request that they <em>not</em> shut up but continue to dialogue with world poetry.</p--> </div> <div class="c2r"> <hr class="hide"/> </div><div class="copyright"><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=referer" onfocus="this.blur();">XHTML</a> | <a href="http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/check/referer" onfocus="this.blur();">CSS</a> | <a href="http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/bobbyServlet?URL=http://www.joanmcbreen.com/reviews.html&amp;output=Submit&amp;gl=wcag1-aaa&amp;test=#bobbyReportText" onfocus="this.blur();">AAA</a> &nbsp;&copy; Copyright 2004 Joan McBreen.</div> </div> <div id="c2"> <div class="homebox"> <h3>Publications</h3> <ul> <li> <div id="watchfulLink"><a class="swap" href="watchful.html" title="The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets - Poems and Essays"><span>The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets - Poems and Essays</span></a></div> <a href="watchful.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets - Poems and Essays">The Watchful Heart - A New Generation of Irish Poets</a><br/><br/> </li> <li> <div id="heatherLink"><a class="swap" href="heather.html" title="Heather Island"><span>Heather Island</span></a></div> <a href="heather.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="heather Island">Heather Island</a><br/>by Joan McBreen<br/><br/><br/> </li> <li> <div id="winterLink"><a class="swap" href="winter.html" title="Winter In The Eye"><span>Winter In The Eye</span></a></div> <a href="winter.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="Winter In The Eye">Winter In The Eye</a><br/>New &amp; Selected Poems by Joan McBreen<br/><br/> </li> <li> <div id="whiteLink"><a class="swap" href="white.html" title="The White Page"><span>The White Page</span></a></div> <a href="white.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="The White Page">The White Page</a><br/>Twentieth Century Irish Women Poets<br/><br/> </li> <li> <div id="walledLink"><a class="swap" href="walled.html" title="A Walled Garden In Moylough"><span>A Walled Garden In Moylough</span></a></div> <a href="walled.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="A Walled Garden In Moylough">A Walled Garden In Moylough</a><br/>Poems by Joan McBreen<br/><br/> </li> <li> <div id="windLink"><a class="swap" href="wind.html" title="The Wind Beyond the Wall"><span>The Wind Beyond the Wall</span></a></div> <a href="wind.html" onfocus="this.blur();" title="The Wind Beyond the Wall">The Wind Beyond the Wall</a><br/>Poems by Joan McBreen </li> </ul> <br/>All publications are available from <a href="http://www.salmonpoetry.com/" onfocus="this.blur();">Salmon Publishing</a> | <a href="http://www.salmonpoetry.com/winter.html" onfocus="this.blur();">Buy Now</a> </div><div class="c2l"> <hr class="hide"/></div> </div> </div> <div id="footer"></div> </div> </body> </html>