![]() ![]() This stance and his undisguised disgust at the phonies and parasites of the literary world meant that Kavanagh was often treated as an outcast during his lifetime. His poetry revealed undiluted truth, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the abhorrent. Patrick Kavanagh wrote of Irish farm life, which he knew so well, without romantic sentimentality. Those lines convinced me I had to seek out Kavanagh’s poetry. I was introduced to Kavanagh’s work through several quotations in Christian Wiman’s My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer. From Appendix A: Author's Note to 'Collected Poems' (1964) Instead of that, poetry made me a sort of outcast. I might have stayed at the same moral age all my life. ![]() I could have been as happily unhappy as the ordinary countryman in Ireland. From If Ever You Go To Dublin Town, 1953įor reasons that I have never been able to explain, the making of verses has changed the course of one man's destiny. There is also a biographical introduction in this volume which bears this out, and an 'Author's Note' at the end, both fascinating. ![]() In fact, according to Quinn, very not so. I was stunned by the delicacy of his poetry on the whole, as the man himself appears less than delicate. This collection features some of his best poems, and some of the not-so-best. I launched into this after recently reading Kavanagh's extraordinary biography by Antionette Quinn. ![]()
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