Poetry: Paddy Bushe's new book from Dedalus gives account of his personal response to China, its poets and its terrain. At the centre of the book are his Irish and English translations of Rilke's 'Buddha in Glory'.
A companion dual-language poem records the experience in a Buddhist temple which unblocked the " . . . threshold customs/ Squatting like guardians against my entering". He includes several more poems in both languages, inviting intriguing readings. The subtle shifts of tone between wonder and scepticism in 'Ag an Droichead a Cruthaíodh Ar Neamh/At the Bridge Made in Heaven' would be ample evidence of his mastery of the craft and his broad range of treatment and subject. His short dedicatory poem for Zhang Xiang, in thanks for an engraved version of his name, reflects the excitement of discovery through translation.
The same poet has also been involved in one of a flood of interesting translations by Irish poets during the past decade or so. He translated the selection (1966-2000) from the marvellous Chinese poet, Zhang Yè, into English, assisted by Prof Yu Jiànzhong, and into Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock. This is not only a fine achievement by all concerned - it is an enthralling adventure, and a steal at €7.50. More trilingual editions like this could win hearts and minds here - and in Brussels . . .
Alan Jude Moore - recipient of a Salmon Poetry Publication Prize for a first collection - is a thirtysomething tyro whose talent burns as brightly as that of Rimbaud or Hart Crane. Moore might be flattered by such comparison, but for all but a few poems the strange hallucinatory juxtapositioning of images and phrases is too fragmentary or inconclusive to effect little more than astonishment. 'The Fountain', placed ironically at the collection's centre, does succeed on its own terms, and thereby helps the reader to piece together tentatively a way of reading some of the other poems as surreal, fragmented experiences. Thus, sometimes we are invited to perceive startling "resemblances in disparate things", and at other times expected to suspend disbelief for irritating dissociations and distortions that require but don't deserve explication. Moore's cavalier ways of abusing (or not using) the courtesies of punctuation and other helpful directions are all the more infuriating when we can see, past all the careless rapture, that he could be a truly original poet.
The blackthorns above Fenore
are flight rooted;
they are folklore's skeletons,
beggars of the green road.
So begins the first poem of Michael O'Dea's second collection, The Green Road. The quiet assertion of a metaphor is carried down through four two-beat quatrains. Metaphor sustains diction and tone, rather than imposing some "important message" on the imagery. This is likeable poetry, sometimes cryptic, sometimes expansive, meeting each subject more or less on its own terms. A few darker poems toward the end are followed by a sequence on the killing fields of Cambodia, in the voices of 15 victims. Like Padraic Colum and James Stephens before him, O'Dea is in danger of being praised for poems such as 'At Naomh Einne's Well' and 'Visiting Lough Ree' while his eye-stinging poems on human frailty and human cruelty, such as 'Suddenly . . .' and 'Seeing . . .' are overlooked.
Wexford man Eamonn Wall's fourth Salmon collection is arranged in two sections: the first is centred on a sequence entitled 'The Wexford Container Tragedy'; the second, somewhat longer, includes a shorter sequence, 'North Atlantic Drift'. The first poem, 'How You Leave', establishes his membership of that battalion of Kavanagh's "standing army" whose lives, personal and professional, are split annually between here and North America. His satire on 'The New Marina in Wexford', with one Ray Wallace as the Countess Cathleen's escort, is amusing. 'The Dutch' pokes ironic fun at the trials and thwarted expectations of those we used to call "the visitors", while giving serious thought to the immigrants' woes.
These three and more are typeset as verse but without the cadences and "free-verse" gestures the term usually implies. Wall therefore relies almost entirely on his disposition of imagery and figuration to accord the bulk of this work the characteristics of poetry. He has a sharp satirical eye; can take the pulse of a sick society; but his forms suggest hasty innovation.
Vona Groarke, on the other hand, brings to her versification the easy grace of a poet who has worked so hard at her art that she makes everyone believe it's easy. This well-turned-out limited edition of 11 poems seems to be Metre Editions' way of celebrating Groarke's abundant gifts. This last stanza of 'Archaeology' demonstrates how an accomplished poet can flex the iambic pentameter sestet in colloquial English to superb effect:
Let's skew it with a spray of last night's dreams:
rain that tasted of copper; houses made of silver-foil;
a piglet in a Babygro, for fun. And then, at last,
to tie the whole thing up, a woman on an unknown road,
waving a cloth so red it bleeds out on her hand,
the empty road, an inscrutable sky. - James J. McAuley
James McAuley is a poet and critic. His next book of poetry will be published by Dedalus this year
The Nitpicking of Cranes, By Paddy Bushe, The Dedalus Press, 78pp. €10pb, €16
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An Góstfhear/The Ghost Man (Gui Nah), By Zhang Yè, English translation by Yu Jiànzhong and Paddy Bushe; leagan Gaeilge le Gabriel Rosenstock, Coiscéim, 243pp. €7.50pb
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Black State Cars, By Alan Jude Moore, Salmon Poetry, 72pp. €12pb
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Turn Your Head, By Michael O'Dea, The Dedalus Press, 72pp. €10pb, €16hb
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Refuge at De Soto Bend, By Eamonn Wall, Salmon Poetry, 80pp. €12pb
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Windmill Hyms, By Vona Groarke, Metre Editions, 21pp.€17pb