Poetry Marginal Economy takes up where recent collections in the Peppercanister series left off - in appraisal of the conditions of life and of how we should respond. First Night identifies the recurrent issue. As Kinsella settles into his room in Baggot Street, he meets a stranger who goes on about the early days, 1916 and the founding of the State, but ignores what actually happened thereafter. That failure is endemic. Having to interpret the past and assess the future is a unifying metaphor.
Two things may be noted about First Night: the economical use of language and the trust in detail. In The Affair, a succession of facts advances the account of the enmity that developed between the poet and Conor Cruise O'Brien which culminated in the latter's sneering review of Kinsella's New Oxford Book of Irish Verse. O'Brien's dismissive reaction to the notion of a tradition in two languages was, in Kinsella's mind, a failure in understanding.
Details are central to the account of a mixed wedding the Kinsellas attend at Trinity College. Marginalised by religion, they note the "ill-fitting particulars". There is "No muttering over body and blood", no transubstantiation, the issue that separates Catholics and Protestants. Nevertheless, it is ceremony as this quietly formal epithalamium happily confirms.
All their hands primary.
The Bride comely.
The Groom steadfast.
The love that joins them is stronger than religious differences.
What counts is how we deal with things. Marcus Aurelius is another example of the inadequate man. He could drive off German tribes who invaded across the Rhine but could not prevent the spread of Christianity from the near East. More interested in abstract inquiry than in military action, his Meditations reflect a compassionate but baffled view of existence
Individuals are placed in marginal positions, so are people. They may assess tradition in a rhetoric of excess, claiming too much for what may be achieved or they may be measured and realistic. Language has both a moral and aesthetic value. In the title poem people live at the margin. They have a bleak existence and must work out towards the edge, their search for what they need requiring more and more care, their reward growing less and less until they have to move on again.
We accepted things as they were,
With no thought of change.
The only change was in ourselves
Moving onward, leaving
Something behind each time.
It is a modest achievement, but it is achievement, exactly measured and gained within an accepted limited time. They make no great claims for what they do and do not expect a force from outside to change their lot.
Kinsella is critical of false prophets and compassionate about our human predicament. The poems are allegories of inadequacy, waste and excess, but also of survival, acceptance and enjoyment of the sunset before it disappears into "the dark embrace of night".
Readings in Poetry discusses how a poem should be read. It illustrates its points by examining specific poems. Kinsella's reading of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is comprehensive and exemplary.
Maurice Harmon's Selected Essays have just been published by Irish Academic Press
Marginal Economy/Readings in Poetry By Thomas Kinsella Peppercanister Books 24 & 25pp, €10 each