Works by major Irish poet appear in print for first time

Two poems written by Patrick Kavanagh more than half a century ago have been published for the first time.

Ungrateful Singer, believed to have been composed in 1936, and an untitled work written for a literary periodical in 1950 were published simultaneously yesterday in the Galway arts magazine west47 and the Times Literary Supplement.

The poems were discovered by Dr Frank Shovlin of the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool during research over the past three years for a doctorate on Irish literary magazines from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Ungrateful Singer was found among the papers of the literary critic, Seumas O'Sullivan, at Trinity College, Dublin. The untitled poem was in the archives of the Morris Library of Southern Illinois University.

Dr Shovlin, from Donegal, said he did not think the works ranked among Kavanagh's best, "but they are very good and are very noticeably Kavanagh. They tell us something about where the man was at the time of writing and tell us something about the culture of the magazines which he contributed to, and on which he relied to an extent for a living."

He said it was not possible to date Ungrateful Singer precisely as it was sent with an undated letter by Kavanagh to O'Sullivan (real name James Sullivan Starkey) who edited The Dublin Magazine. He said "late 1936" was a reasonable guess, however, as two additional poems included with the letter were published in the journal's first edition of 1937.

Kavanagh, whose first collection of poems was published in 1936, was "very much the young man trying to make a name for himself" at the time of writing, said Dr Shovlin. "In his correspondence with O'Sullivan he is very trepidatious and advises the editor to burn any of the poems he didn't like."

As a result, he said, it was likely O'Sullivan rather than Kavanagh had rejected the poem. In contrast, Dr Shovlin said, Kavanagh himself decided not to publish the untitled poem, composed when the Monaghan poet was an established literary figure and spending much time London.

The work was written to appear in the July 1950 edition of Envoy: An Irish Review of Literture and Art, a publication edited by John Ryan to which Kavanagh contributed a monthly diary article.

Dr Shovlin said he learned of the Envoy archive in Illinois "by chance" through some friends. The US university was involved in an exchange programme with NUI Galway, where Dr Shovlin studied Kavanagh as part of a master's degree.

The untitled poem refers to a BBC literary radio show on which Kavanagh appeared, earning a 40-guinea fee in the process. He said the verse contrasted with the more satirical works which Kavanagh wrote at the time.