FOR his first two collections of poetry, Proca So la is Luatha (Coisceim, 1988) and 30 Dan (Coisceim, 1992), Louis de Paor was awarded the prestigious Sean O Riordain Oireachtas Poetry Award. Since then he has gone from strength to strength. He lives in Australia, and publishes bilingually: his third collection. Aimsir Bhreicneach/ Freckled Weather, was nominated for the Victorian Premieres Award for Literary Translation.
Now back in Ireland, Louis de Paor has returned to publishing in Irish only - and one can only sympathise with those whose Irish is not up to scratch and who will be unable to enjoy his latest collection Seo, Sirid agus Uile.
The collection has a definite Australian flavour and spans a wide variety of themes: love, fatherhood, history, emigration, to mention but a few This variety does not suggest that the collection is in any way disjointed. On the contrary, there is a unity of style and perspective that allows the reader's eye to flow easily from poem to poem.
In the opening poem, "Fabhal-sceal" ("Fable"), de Paor prepares us somewhat for what is to come:
Nuair a chastar na cnoic ar a cheile sa chearnog ar chuil an aonaigh labhraid canuint olog is fraoigh na gcrionfhear ar bhinsi cloiche ag caint ar isleain is ardain a mbeatha thar lear na mblianta imirce
(When the mountains meet in the square behind the market, they speak a language of heather and olives, the argot of old men on stone benches talking of the ups and downs, of their lives across the sea of immigrant years . .
Like the mountains, Louis de Paor has travelled and after nine years in Australia, he has returned across the seas of immigrant years with the sharpened insight and the unique voice and perspective of the "half-outsider".
What is perhaps most striking about this meeting of the mountains is not just the content of their conversations, but also the various images that filter through their meanderings:
Fiacail oir na greine ag gnoscarnach ina mbearlagar cailce
(The golden tooth of the sun gleaming in their chalk-white talk) and elswhere.)
Airionn a meara pairiliseacha snagbhuilli croi ar phaidrin na himni...
(Their palsied fingers count hiccuping heartbeats on worrybeads..)
This power of imagery is evident in practically every poem in Seo Siud agus Uile. In "Didjeridu", de Paor tells us that the music of the didjeridu will not lure a snake from a woven basket, nor will it set your foot tapping out a hornpipe or slide - but
Ma sheasann tu dho chead bliain ag eisteacht cloisfir ceol stair a chine ag sileadh as ionathar pollta...
(If you stand listening for two hundred years, you'll hear the songs of his people bleed from a punctured lung...)
In "larlais" ("Changeling"). de Paor carries the parental guilt usually attributed to the mother. As he prepares his little daughter for her bath, she runs from him naked, and in his mind's eye, she is suddenly transformed into the tortured child victim running down an unending road in North Vietnam:
chomh lumnocht le suil gan fora, gan luid uirthi a cheilfeadh a cabhail tanai ar mo shuil mhillteach nuair a chaoch an ceamara leathshuil dhall uirthi mar seo...
(naked as an unlidded eye, without a stitch to protect her wizened body from my evil eye, when the camera winked at her like this ...)
This and other poems relating to fatherhood ("Inghean/Daughter", "Cnuas/Treasure") are particularly significant in that they approach the theme of parenting from what was traditionally the mother's viewpoint. Having spent several years as the full-time, home-based parent, de Paor breaks the traditional barriers with ease. The most powerful of these "parent" poems is "An Dubh ina Gheal" ("Assimilation ), in which the police have taken away an aborigine's son. The tortured grief of the parent who has lost a child is heightened by de Paor's control of language, language that is simple but explosive as the parent's hand uncovers a child's footprint undisturbed in the sand:
...mhothaigh se caolghlor leanbai, faohhar scine ag reabadh craiceann na talun.
La i ndiaidh lae o shin airionn se screacha tinnis on gcro ghonta nuair a chuireann a mhear sa chreacht tirim
(... he heard a high-pitched scream, sharp as a knife, gash the unprotected earth. Day after day he hears the scarred earth cry out when he puts his hand in that dry wound.)
From poem to poem, Louis de Paor takes us with him to Australia past and present, back in his mind's eye to his childhood in Cork and back again to present times to aspects of love, life and family. Much of his greatness as a poet is based on his ability to take the most simple and ordinary aspects of life and transform them into the special, the unique. Seo, Siud, agus Uile is undoubtedly his finest collection to date and singles him out as one of Ireland's' greatest poets. Sadly, however, unless he decides to publish in Ireland with English translations, he will always remain underrated.