Everyone who knows me knows I have a thing for anything Irish. But that’s not why I love Poetry Ireland.  I love Poetry Ireland because it is the best poetry journal out there.  Though the subscription is pricey, I will never let it lapse.  And I can never let go of an issue because it is the kind of journal you can re-visit often and always find something of interest.  Of course the poetry is top-notch but so are the essays and reviews. Plus, a subscription comes with a newsletter so you get up-to-date calls for submissions and news. It was in May 3-June 6 edition of Poetry Ireland eNews that I came across the following item, which I feel compelled to share.

 

It is a short article about the passing of poet Patrick Galvin and I quote it in full.

Patrick Galvin

Poetry Ireland was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of poet, playwright and writer Patrick Galvin. Alongside being a successful poet and author, Galvin was also founder/chairman of the Munster Literature Centre, the Dún Laoghaire Poetry Now festival and a member of Aosdána. He is survived by his wife Mary Johnston and his five children.

Described as fiery, iconoclastic, socialist and anti-establishment Galvin was informed by the experience of a politicised working-class childhood in Cork city and his work “has always resisted categorisation and certainly seems closer to European or South American writing than anything else produced in Ireland.”

He published a number of collections of poetry, including Heart of Grace, as well as plays and radio plays including And Him Stretched and The Devil’s Own People. His autobiography, which formed a trilogy, Song for a Poor Boy, Song for a Raggy Boy and Song for a Fly Boy received crititcal acclaim – culminating in a film adaptation starring Aidan Quinn.

We would like to express our deepest sympathies to his family and friends.

extract from Message to the Editor

I can’t write now

Because the coffin is too narrow

And there’s no light.

I’m trying to send this

Through a medium

But you know what they’re like –

Table-tapping bastards

Reeking of ectoplasm.

If you manage to receive this

I’d be glad if you’d print it.

There’s no point asking you

To send me a copy –

I don’t even know my own address.

– Patrick Galvin

 

I am sure you can see why the poem struck me. I wanted to share it and the obituary, which I think is so well-written that when it is my time,  I am considering dying in Ireland just so I could maybe have such a nice write-up.  Though I wanted to post the poem and obit, I felt I had to pay dues for it so I ordered New and Selected Poems of Patrick Galvin (edited by Greg Delanty and Robert Welch, published by Cork University Press), and I have been grateful to read it. The poem that is quoted “Message to the Editor” is a stunner as is “Advice to a Poet” and many others.

The reason why I post this today is because Patrick Gavin was born August 15, 1927 so it seems approprate.