PATRICK GALVIN is like no other living Irish poet. He is sui generis, a once off figure, moulded by a unique combination of biographical, historical and literary influences. A working class Corkonian born in 1927, he imbibed the rich popular culture of that special city and then in early manhood embarked on an adventurous life of foreign travel and living and multifarious occupations. His New and Selected Poems, ed. Greg Delanty and Robert Welch (Cork University Press, £12.95/£7.95), comes as a very welcome reminder of a too little known Irish poet.
As a performance poet - which is what I think he essentially is - Galvin predates and, so far as I'm concerned, excels in skill and vigour all later such poets. I witnessed this personally back in the early Seventies when I shared a stage with him in his native city. He had his audience totally spellbound. When he concluded his reading there was a sense of deprivation, such was the appetite for more of what Galvin had given. His delivery had the timing of a superbly crafted dramatic script, which should not have surprised us, for Galvin is a fine dramatist and folk singer (he has made seven LPs) as well as a poet.
Among other things, Galvin's poetry draws on the exaggeration and repetition of folk poetry.
All down from the iron hills
All down from the Windy
Gap
The silver lights are going out and the green ice cracks.
The old men rise from drunken beds
The young men creep from village holes
All down to a starving town All down to Roxy's
(from "Roxy's")
It is often brutally violent.
With my little red knife
I raised her up
With my little red knife
I ripped her
And there in the gloom and rolling night
I cut her throat by candle light
And hurried home to my waiting wife
Who damned my little red knife.
("My Little Red Knife")
Added to this is Galvin's canny awareness of the freedoms and surprises which surrealism offers. In this combination of the folklorist and surrealist, his work reminds one of that of Lorca who has clearly had a deep effect on Galvin.
I see your face
And murder on your brow
When nettles spring from steel
And mountains bleed.
I see your sorrows
Stretched across the stars
And feel your limbs pressed cold
Against the moon
("Christ in London")
Nonetheless, it is not Lorca or surrealism that strikes one most in reading Galvin, but the anarchic rage of the spalpeen Gaelipoetry of the 18th century. And the poetry of Synge is never far away, with out being obtrusive.
Poets of this country may now rejoice
Gleeson is dead!
Bailiff and bastard of the first order
Swimming in fire
May his greed choke him.
("David Gleeson")
GALVIN's poetry is not politically correct. I state this neither as praise nor blame, but simply as a matter of fact. Feminists will find a good deal here to upset them, and one has to admit that there is a certain, even an unpleasant amount of macho swagger and braggadocio when sex shows up. His political incorrectness, however, is totally justified when he directs his attack at the institutions of Church and State which he delights in lambasting. The poet's affinities are with the odd, the deprived, the dispossessed and the marginalised. He expresses their rage and hurt and frustrations.
Cork University Press is to be congratulated on the publication of this handsomely produced book. The introduction by Greg Delanty and Robert Welch is free of pedantic jargon; it is informative and it sensibly avoids wild claims. It leads into the poetry rather than acting as a barrier. For those not yet familiar with Patrick Galvin's poetry, this book will be a real pleasure.