Derek Mahon (23 November 1941 – 1 October 2020) was an Irish poet.[1] He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland but lived in a number of cities around the world. At his death it was noted that his, "influence in the Irish poetry community, literary world and society at large, and his legacy, is immense".[2] President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said of Mahon; "he shared with his northern peers the capacity to link the classical and the contemporary but he brought also an edge that was unsparing of cruelty and wickedness."[3]
Derek Mahon
Mahon in 2010
Born
(1941-11-23)23 November 1941 Belfast, Northern Ireland
Died
1 October 2020(2020-10-01) (aged 78) Cork, Ireland
Derek Mahon was born on 23 November 1941 as the only child of Ulster Protestant working-class parents. His father and grandfather worked at Harland and Wolff while his mother worked at a local flax mill.[4] During his childhood, he claims he was something of a solitary dreamer, comfortable with his own company yet aware of the world around him. Interested in literature from an early age, he attended Skegoneill Primary school and then the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, or "Inst".
At Inst he encountered fellow students who shared his interest in literature and poetry. The school produced a magazine to which Mahon produced some of his early poems. According to the critic Hugh Haughton his early poems were highly fluent and extraordinary for a person so young. His parents could not see the point of poetry, but he set out to prove them wrong after he won his school's Forrest Reid Memorial Prize for the poem 'The power that gives the water breath'.[5]
After leaving the Sorbonne in 1966 he worked his way through Canada and the United States. In 1968, while spending a year teaching English at Belfast High School, he published his first collection of poems Night Crossing. He later taught in a school in Dublin and worked in London as a freelance journalist. He lived in Kinsale, County Cork. On 23 March 2007 he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. He won the Poetry Now Award in 2006 for his collection, Harbour Lights, and again in 2009 for his Life on Earth collection.[7]
At times expressing anti-establishment values, Mahon has described himself as, an 'aesthete' with a penchant 'for left-wingery [...] to which, perhaps naively, I adhere.'[8]
In March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, RTÉ News ended its evening broadcast with Mahon reading his poem Everything Is Going to Be All Right.[10]
On 1 October 2020, Mahon died in Cork after a short illness, aged 78.[11]
He is survived by his partner Sarah Iremonger and his three children, Rory, Katy, and Maisie.[11]
StyleEdit
Thoroughly educated and with a keen understanding of literary tradition, Mahon came out of the tumult of Northern Ireland with a formal, moderate, even restrained poetic voice. In an era of free verse, Mahon has often written in received forms, using a broadly applied version of iambic pentameter that, metrically, resembles the "sprung foot" verse of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Some poems rhyme. Even the Irish landscape itself is never all that far from the classical tradition, as in his poem "Achill":
And I think of my daughter at work on her difficult art
And wish she were with me now between thrush and plover,
Wild thyme and sea-thrift, to lift the weight from my heart.
He has also explored the genre of ekphrasis: the poetic reinterpretation of visual art. In that respect he has been interested in 17th century Dutch and Flemish art.
BibliographyEdit
PoetryEdit
Mahon features on the Irish Leaving Certificate course with ten of his poems (Grandfather, Day Trip to Donegal, Ecclesiastes, After the Titanic, As It Should Be, A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford, Rathlin, The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush, Kinsale and Antarctica)[1].
CollectionsEdit
1965: Twelve Poems. Festival Publications, Belfast
1968: Night-Crossing. Oxford University Press
1970: Ecclesiastes Phoenix Pamphlet Poets
1970: Beyond Howth Head. Dolmen Press
1972: Lives. Oxford University Press
1975: The Snow Party. Oxford University Press
1977: In Their Element. Arts Council of Northern Ireland
1979: Poems 1962–1978. Oxford University Press
1981: Courtyards in Delft. Gallery Press
1982: The Hunt By Night. Oxford University Press
1985: Antarctica. Gallery Press
1990: The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush: Selected Poems. Gallery Press
1991: Selected Poems. Viking
1992: The Yaddo Letter. Gallery Press
1995: The Hudson Letter. Gallery Press; Wake Forest University Press, 1996
1997: The Yellow Book. Gallery Press; Wake Forest University Press, 1998
^Foundation, Poetry (6 November 2022). "Derek Mahon". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
^"Belfast-born poet Derek Mahon dies aged 78". BBC News. 2 October 2020.
^Neville, Steve; Cleary, Mairéad (2 October 2020). "'Yet another artist gone from us in recent times': Poet Derek Mahon dies aged 78". Irish Examiner.
^Genzlinger, Neil (2 October 2020). "Derek Mahon, Popular Irish Poet, is Dead at 78". The New York Times.
^Life of poet is work in progress Cork Examiner 11 October 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
^Foundation, Poetry (7 November 2022). "Derek Mahon". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
^Mahon wins 'Irish Times' poetry prize for new collection Irish Times, 28 March 2009.
^Ciarán O'Rourke (14 December 2019). "Derek Mahon, A Poet of The Left". Independent Left. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
^"Derek Mahon papers, 1948–2018". Emory Archives. 2 November 2007. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
^Cain, Sian (2 October 2020). "Derek Mahon, Belfast-born giant of Irish poetry, dies aged 78". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
^ abSmyth, Gerard. "Derek Mahon, one of Ireland's leading poets, has died, aged 78". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2 October 2020.
^ ab"Derek Mahon". Belfast Group Poetry. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
^"Derek Mahon". The Gallery Press. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
^"Derek Mahon wins this year's Irish Times Poetry Now Award". The Irish Times. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
Further readingEdit
Allen Randolph, Jody. Derek Mahon: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Irish University Review: Special Issue: Derek Mahon 24.1 (Spring/Summer 1994): 131–156.
Reggiani, Enrico. In Attesa della Vita, Introduzione alla Poetica di Derek Mahon, Vita e Pensiero, Milano 1996, pp. 432 [seconda ristampa: 2005]
Haughton, Hugh. The Poetry of Derek Mahon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Jarniewicz, Jerzy. Ekphrasis in the Poetry of Derek Mahon, Piotrkow: NWP Press, 2013, pp. 275, ISBN978-83-7726-056-2
Christopher Steare: Derek Mahon : a study of his poetry, London : Greenwich Exchange, 2017, ISBN978-1-910996-08-9
External linksEdit
Wikiquote has quotations related to Derek Mahon.
Eamonn Grennan (Spring 2000). "Derek Mahon, The Art of Poetry No. 82". The Paris Review. Spring 2000 (154).
Griffin Poetry Prize biography
Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
"" from poets.org.
"" from The Poem.
"Painting into Poetry: The Case of Derek Mahon" by Rajeev S. Patke.
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University: Derek Mahon papers, 1948–2018
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University: Derek Mahon collection, 1985–1988, 1991, 2000
Letters and postcards from Derek Mahon to Louis Asekoff from 1963 to 1988: Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University: Letters to Louis Asekoff, 1963–1988
derek, mahon, november, 1941, october, 2020, irish, poet, born, belfast, northern, ireland, lived, number, cities, around, world, death, noted, that, influence, irish, poetry, community, literary, world, society, large, legacy, immense, president, ireland, mic. Derek Mahon 23 November 1941 1 October 2020 was an Irish poet 1 He was born in Belfast Northern Ireland but lived in a number of cities around the world At his death it was noted that his influence in the Irish poetry community literary world and society at large and his legacy is immense 2 President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said of Mahon he shared with his northern peers the capacity to link the classical and the contemporary but he brought also an edge that was unsparing of cruelty and wickedness 3 Derek MahonMahon in 2010Born 1941 11 23 23 November 1941Belfast Northern IrelandDied1 October 2020 2020 10 01 aged 78 Cork IrelandOccupationPoet JournalistGenrePoetryLiterary movementModernism Contents 1 Biography 2 Style 3 Bibliography 3 1 Poetry 3 1 1 Collections 3 1 2 Translations versions editions 3 2 Non fiction 3 3 Critical studies and reviews of Mahon s work 4 Honours 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External linksBiography EditDerek Mahon was born on 23 November 1941 as the only child of Ulster Protestant working class parents His father and grandfather worked at Harland and Wolff while his mother worked at a local flax mill 4 During his childhood he claims he was something of a solitary dreamer comfortable with his own company yet aware of the world around him Interested in literature from an early age he attended Skegoneill Primary school and then the Royal Belfast Academical Institution or Inst At Inst he encountered fellow students who shared his interest in literature and poetry The school produced a magazine to which Mahon produced some of his early poems According to the critic Hugh Haughton his early poems were highly fluent and extraordinary for a person so young His parents could not see the point of poetry but he set out to prove them wrong after he won his school s Forrest Reid Memorial Prize for the poem The power that gives the water breath 5 Mahon pursued third level studies at Trinity College Dublin in French English and Philosophy 6 and where he edited Icarus and formed many friendships with writers such as Michael Longley Eavan Boland and Brendan Kennelly He started to mature as a poet He left Trinity in 1965 to take up studies at the Sorbonne in Paris After leaving the Sorbonne in 1966 he worked his way through Canada and the United States In 1968 while spending a year teaching English at Belfast High School he published his first collection of poems Night Crossing He later taught in a school in Dublin and worked in London as a freelance journalist He lived in Kinsale County Cork On 23 March 2007 he was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature He won the Poetry Now Award in 2006 for his collection Harbour Lights and again in 2009 for his Life on Earth collection 7 At times expressing anti establishment values Mahon has described himself as an aesthete with a penchant for left wingery to which perhaps naively I adhere 8 His papers are held at Emory University 9 In March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic RTE News ended its evening broadcast with Mahon reading his poem Everything Is Going to Be All Right 10 On 1 October 2020 Mahon died in Cork after a short illness aged 78 11 He is survived by his partner Sarah Iremonger and his three children Rory Katy and Maisie 11 Style EditThoroughly educated and with a keen understanding of literary tradition Mahon came out of the tumult of Northern Ireland with a formal moderate even restrained poetic voice In an era of free verse Mahon has often written in received forms using a broadly applied version of iambic pentameter that metrically resembles the sprung foot verse of Gerard Manley Hopkins Some poems rhyme Even the Irish landscape itself is never all that far from the classical tradition as in his poem Achill Croagh Patrick towers like Naxos over the waterAnd I think of my daughter at work on her difficult art dd And wish she were with me now between thrush and plover Wild thyme and sea thrift to lift the weight from my heart dd He has also explored the genre of ekphrasis the poetic reinterpretation of visual art In that respect he has been interested in 17th century Dutch and Flemish art Bibliography EditPoetry Edit Mahon features on the Irish Leaving Certificate course with ten of his poems Grandfather Day Trip to Donegal Ecclesiastes After the Titanic As It Should Be A Disused Shed in Co Wexford Rathlin The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush Kinsale and Antarctica 1 Collections Edit 1965 Twelve Poems Festival Publications Belfast 1968 Night Crossing Oxford University Press 1970 Ecclesiastes Phoenix Pamphlet Poets 1970 Beyond Howth Head Dolmen Press 1972 Lives Oxford University Press 1975 The Snow Party Oxford University Press 1977 In Their Element Arts Council of Northern Ireland 1979 Poems 1962 1978 Oxford University Press 1981 Courtyards in Delft Gallery Press 1982 The Hunt By Night Oxford University Press 1985 Antarctica Gallery Press 1990 The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush Selected Poems Gallery Press 1991 Selected Poems Viking 1992 The Yaddo Letter Gallery Press 1995 The Hudson Letter Gallery Press Wake Forest University Press 1996 1997 The Yellow Book Gallery Press Wake Forest University Press 1998 1999 Collected Poems Gallery Press 2001 Selected Poems Penguin 2005 Harbour Lights Gallery Press winner of the 2006 Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2007 Somewhere the Wave Gallery Press 2008 Life on Earth Gallery Press shortlisted for the 2009 International Griffin Poetry Prize winner of the 2009 Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2010 An Autumn Wind Gallery Press 2011 New Collected Poems Gallery Press 2016 New Selected Poems Faber amp Faber Gallery Press 2020 Washing Up Gallery Press 2021 The Poems 1961 2020 Gallery PressTranslations versions editions Edit 1982 The Chimeras a version of Les Chimeres by Nerval Gallery Press 1985 High Time a version of Moliere s A School for Husbands Gallery Press 1988 The Selected Poems of Philippe Jaccottet Viking 1988 1996 The Bacchae of Euripides and Racine s Phaedra Gallery Press 2001 Jonathan Swift Poems selected by Derek Mahon Faber and Faber ISBN 978 0 571 20715 2 2002 Birds a version of Oiseaux by Saint John Perse Gallery Press 2004 Cyrano de Bergerac A version of the play by Edmond Rostand Gallery Press 2005 Oedipus A conflation of Sophocles Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus Gallery Press 2006 Adaptations A collection of versions rather than translations proper from poets such as Pasolini Juvenal Bertolt Brecht Paul Valery Baudelaire Rilke and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill Gallery Press Mahon Derek 2013 Echo s grove collected translations The Gallery Press Non fiction Edit 1996 Journalism selected prose 1970 1995 Ed Terence Brown Gallery PressCritical studies and reviews of Mahon s work Edit Enniss Stephen 2014 After the Titanic A Life of Derek Mahon Gill amp Macmillan Haughton Hugh 2007 The Poetry of Derek Mahon Oxford University Press Jarniewicz Jerzy 2013 Ekphrasis in the Poetry of Derek Mahon NWP Piotrkow ISBN 978 83 7726 056 2 Cooke Belinda June July 2014 Nasty brutish and short The London Magazine 99 104 Review of Echo s grove Honours Edit1965 Eric Gregory Award for poetry 12 1989 Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize 1990 Lannan Literary Awards for Poetry 1992 The Irish Times Aer Lingus Poetry Prize 12 1995 Honorary doctorate Trinity College Dublin 2001 Honorary doctorate NUI Galway for work reflecting the enduring aesthetic of achievement in contemporary Irish writing 2007 David Cohen Prize for Literature in recognition of his lifetime s achievement Member Aosdana Irish Academy of Letters Award Guggenheim Fellowship 13 2020 Irish Times Poetry Now award 14 See also Edit nbsp Poetry portalList of Northern Irish writersReferences Edit Foundation Poetry 6 November 2022 Derek Mahon Poetry Foundation Retrieved 7 November 2022 Belfast born poet Derek Mahon dies aged 78 BBC News 2 October 2020 Neville Steve Cleary Mairead 2 October 2020 Yet another artist gone from us in recent times Poet Derek Mahon dies aged 78 Irish Examiner Genzlinger Neil 2 October 2020 Derek Mahon Popular Irish Poet is Dead at 78 The New York Times Life of poet is work in progress Cork Examiner 11 October 2014 Retrieved 3 October 2020 Foundation Poetry 7 November 2022 Derek Mahon Poetry Foundation Retrieved 7 November 2022 Mahon wins Irish Times poetry prize for new collection Irish Times 28 March 2009 Ciaran O Rourke 14 December 2019 Derek Mahon A Poet of The Left Independent Left Retrieved 18 December 2019 Derek Mahon papers 1948 2018 Emory Archives 2 November 2007 Retrieved 11 September 2020 Cain Sian 2 October 2020 Derek Mahon Belfast born giant of Irish poetry dies aged 78 The Guardian Retrieved 2 October 2020 a b Smyth Gerard Derek Mahon one of Ireland s leading poets has died aged 78 The Irish Times Retrieved 2 October 2020 a b Derek Mahon Belfast Group Poetry Retrieved 11 September 2020 Derek Mahon The Gallery Press Retrieved 11 September 2020 Derek Mahon wins this year s Irish Times Poetry Now Award The Irish Times Retrieved 11 September 2020 Further reading EditAllen Randolph Jody Derek Mahon A Comprehensive Bibliography Irish University Review Special Issue Derek Mahon 24 1 Spring Summer 1994 131 156 Reggiani Enrico In Attesa della Vita Introduzione alla Poetica di Derek Mahon Vita e Pensiero Milano 1996 pp 432 seconda ristampa 2005 Haughton Hugh The Poetry of Derek Mahon Oxford Oxford University Press 2007 Jarniewicz Jerzy Ekphrasis in the Poetry of Derek Mahon Piotrkow NWP Press 2013 pp 275 ISBN 978 83 7726 056 2 Christopher Steare Derek Mahon a study of his poetry London Greenwich Exchange 2017 ISBN 978 1 910996 08 9External links Edit nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Derek Mahon Eamonn Grennan Spring 2000 Derek Mahon The Art of Poetry No 82 The Paris Review Spring 2000 154 Derek Mahon s page at Wake Forest University Press Griffin Poetry Prize biography Griffin Poetry Prize reading including video clip Achill from poets org A Disused Shed in Co Wexford from The Poem Painting into Poetry The Case of Derek Mahon by Rajeev S Patke Stuart A Rose Manuscript Archives and Rare Book Library Emory University Derek Mahon papers 1948 2018 Stuart A Rose Manuscript Archives and Rare Book Library Emory University Derek Mahon collection 1985 1988 1991 2000 Letters and postcards from Derek Mahon to Louis Asekoff from 1963 to 1988 Stuart A Rose Manuscript Archives and Rare Book Library Emory University Letters to Louis Asekoff 1963 1988 Portraits of Derek Mahon at the National Portrait Gallery London Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Derek Mahon amp oldid 1179769515, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
