The question posed to me: Is my topic one that has been under/over researched? My question to me is: Can I contribute anything of worth to the discourse? I am interested in the Irish who have made, or were forced to make, America their home; and how they have gone from voicelessness & powerlessness, to finding their voice and power through literature, especially poetry. I will be covering the political voice as a device for gaining voice, as well as exposing the sale of the poor, usually Catholic Irish to countries, by the king of England, including here in America, the West Indies and Barbados.
The Boland and Holmes articles were used in an earlier article critique and well discussed by me already. To recap them briefly: Where I found Boland lacking was her scope of Irish political poets and history. She did not include many references. I don’t feel her article was a study, as much as it was an explanation of the emergence of women poets into the Irish political poetry community, not as “object”, but as “subject.” Boland, I believe, wrote with a feminist point of view. Holmes did his research, which in turn, saves me from doing it, so therefore this article adds to the breadth and scope of my information. He concerned himself with the 1700’s. His article was very detailed and was a well defended argument. The three new articles are: Castro’s piece entitled, “Mad Ireland Hurts Her Too,” Monaghan’s article, “Grandmothers and Rebel Lovers: Archetypes in Irish American Women's Poetry” and O’Driscoll’s piece, “Troubled thoughts: Poetry politics in contemporary Ireland.” Castro’s article is a review of Boland’s book of poetry, “In a Time of Violence,” which Castro feels should join other, “socially conscious books in Ireland.” Castro uses the review to share her thoughts on Boland, and quotes her as saying, “Boland argues that in the past twenty years, Irish women have advanced from being anonymous mute witnesses in the belly of a male-created “mother” Ireland to being authors of literature” (Castro, 1994).
Castro explains Boland grew up in Dublin, London and New York City. Castro reports that: Boland contrasts Yeats’s voice, smelling honey “where honey could not be” (note the Platonic edge to the “bee” pun), with her own gentle questioning of his escapism “aboard a spirit- ship” in a land wasted by war. Boland’s mixed identification with Yeats dates to this period. (Castro, 1994)
Castro also states that, “Boland also revises Yeats’s views of females in her series on dolls and artifacts (Castro, 1994). Castro talks of the American poets and the 1960’s peace actions, the poets that young folk imitated in their actions, and the “Growing tensions regarding gender and genre added to the confusions of the Irish as well as the American seventies.” She also writes, “With apparent simplicity, Boland frames the large aesthetic and historic issues central to the poet’s concerns.” And she says Boland:
Boland combines… oral authority to witness human difficulties… sustained metaphors enlarge her literal views of her Irish roots and culture. Boland’s ethical perspective is as personal and universal as her focus on the dispossessed and war casualties and on roles within a family. (Castro, 1994)
One last quote of Castro’s that I would like to share: As she squarely confronts the reader with everyday acts, you don't have to be Irish to understand that her messages point toward a future morality a long way off- one in which gender or other classifications do not diminish, essentialize or reduce, one in which our humanity toward one another is evenhanded. (Castro, 1994)
Monaghan’s article opens with the word, “A canon is forming in Irish American Literary Studies… To whom are dissertations devoted…” (Monaghan, 1993).
Monaghan goes on to ask in her second paragraph, “Where are the women?” and gives a laundry list of those that should be included. Monaghan explains that only, “8 out of 52 of authors listed are women” (Monaghan, 1993).
She says that not only are women disproportionately not represented, so is the critical attention each receives. She relays how only Elizabeth Cullinan was “merited” with an entire essay. Monaghan lists the literary achievements of Irish American women writers and states that they have contributed much to the literary world, and yet are grossly neglected. She asks: How many does it takes to make a tradition?” and says that If women writes don’t write about pub life, they also
don’t address some of the other themes said to define the Irish American writer. (Monaghan, 1993)
Monaghan explores what is “tradition.” She concludes that is it difficult to form tradition for the Irish American writers because of several factors, one being the lack of books in print, and another is the fact that many women took on their husbands’ last names and in doing so it is hard to find these Irish American women writers. Along with the last-mentioned reason, Monaghan explains that women of non-Irish heritage marry into the names of the Irish which makes finding true Irish American writers. Monaghan discusses Phyllis McGinley, the Pulitzer Prize winner, and how she too is not covered in critical analysis. Monaghan questions whether these former Irish American women poets influenced today’s Irish American women poets, because today’s poets do not acknowledge or mention their “foremothers.” She says they still write about some of the same themes because: Just as the Irish American man writes of the pub because he knows it so well, his sister poet writes of grandmothers and rebel lovers because she knows those characters so intimately. (Monaghan, 1993)
She goes on to reveal five Irish American women poets who write on these two figures: grandmothers and rebel lovers. The first brings the writers back to Ireland through their grandmother and “forging a link between Ireland and America.” Monaghan says that grandmother, “embodies the strangeness of the land abandoned… she becomes the liminal figure, the immigrant, no longer at home in Ireland but never fully American” (Monaghan, 1993).
The other character the Irish American women writer explores is the rebel lover, not always a political rebel according to Monaghan. She writes that just as grandmother can stand for mother, rebel can stand for father, “…one who encompasses both anger and sexuality.” Monaghan makes clear how, “these two figures have much in common. The rebel, who takes life, also offers immortality in a cause greater than self; the grandmother, who helped give us life, eventually must die” (Monaghan, 1993).
Monaghan says that the Irish American writer, “must both acknowledge tradition, and break with it…” (Monaghan, 1993).
O'Driscoll’s piece was a bit sarcastic toward the idea of Irish poetry and the worth of it as apparent by the following quote: Courses in Irish Studies, proliferating in the U.S. and elsewhere, appear founded on the assumption that if something is Irish it must be worthy of acclaim. Quality is less important than provenance… Irish poets have critical spokespersons at home or abroad whose role is somewhere between that of a political aide and a public relations consultant. The poet effectively becomes the client of the critic, who-in return for privileged access--will dictate to the public how that poet's work should be read and interpreted. Elucidation takes precedence over evaluation, and protectionism is the favoured economic tool. (O'Driscoll, 1995)
O'Driscoll goes on to say, “Irish poets enjoy an honoured place in the lists of English publishers, whereas Irish publishers almost never return the compliment. The same is true of reviewing…” (O'Driscoll, 1995).
I again quote O'Driscoll: We hold up a barber-shop mirror to our nature, scrutinising ourselves from every possible angle. I am sure I am not alone in yawning and turning the page; but over the page, one may be drawn into some petty but dogmatic dogfight in the guise of a review. (O'Driscoll, 1995)
I am finding this article a bit tough to read. O'Driscoll’s seeming bitterness toward his own people is a bit much to take, but maybe, just maybe what he has to say is worth continuing reading. O'Driscoll redeems himself, slightly, by offering the following: Nonetheless, something of the traditional respect for poetry does linger, and it creates a receptive environment in which verse may be written in English and Irish--the success of bilingual editions of contemporary Irish-language poetry has been heartening. Literary visitors are struck by the fact that poetry is not regarded by the Irish as an abnormal activity… In Ireland, where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion were poets, where Yeats's picture appears on the twenty-pound note, where the mayor of Galway is a poet, one begins to recognize that the alienation and isolation many poets feel in the U.S. are inherent not in the art itself but in the commercialized, television-dominated culture in which we live. (O'Driscoll, 1995)
He also gives insight to the present day “battles” going on in Ireland: Like everything else in Ireland, poetry is contentious. There is always an occasion of outrage." Belfast versus Dublin. Ireland versus England. Paul Muldoon's Faber anthology (with its pro-Northern bias) versus Thomas Kinsella's Oxford anthology (which dismisses the "Northern Irish Renaissance" as "largely a journalistic entity"). Women versus the Field Day Anthology (in which female writers were underrepresented) . . . The mass production of poetry, as has occurred in America, is still some way off, although workshops, creative writing classes, and university residencies are becoming more common. (O'Driscoll)
While in Ireland have witnessed, firsthand, the following phenomenon: With so much negative discussion of poetry in the United States, where it is periodically suggested that there are too many poets, that "no one reads poetry anymore," it has been a tonic to live in a country where poetry enjoys a vital, secure place in the national culture. (O'Driscoll, 1995)
Heaney’s recent passing may cause a resurgence of Irish poetry, and Irish American poetry. I was glad to see O’Driscoll including a short poem by Heaney. When For fuck's sake, are you going to write
Something for us? "If I do write something,"
(This is one line I remember clearly)
"It'll be for me, not you or anybody
About to tell me what I should be writing." Short poems are miracles, according to my good friend, Allen Planz, who, himself, is no longer with us, but Robert Bly considered our best American “seafaring” poet in the United States, and Irish!
So, now comes my moment of truth; can I add anything to the ongoing discourse concerning Irish and Irish American poets and poetry. Can I bring some flicker of light to the causes, the reasons, and the outcomes of the Irish experience here in America. I still say, yes. I feel better prepared than before, by knowing there is much research already done on the topic, which enables me to concentrate on my work. All I need to do is “gather” the material, like wildflowers in a meadow. I am free to create an anthology of Irish and Irish American poets. The word anthology literally means a bouquet of flowers, how fitting!
Works Cited
Boland, E. (1995). Writing the political poem in Ireland. Southern Review, 485-499.
Castro, J. (1994). Mad Ireland Hurts Her Too. The Nation, 791-801.
Monaghan, P. (1993). Grandmothers and Rebel Lovers: Archetypes in Irish American Women's Poetry. MELUS, 1-12.
O'Driscoll, D. (1995). Troubled thoughts: Poetry politics in contemporary Ireland. Southern Review, 639-655.
Swift, S. (2008). Cultural politics in the Irish confessional state. Irish Studies Review, 431-444.