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Relevant Background | Themes | Poetic Techniques | Imagery
Relevant background
- Derek Mahon grew up on the outskirts of Belfast. He was educated in Belfast, Trinity College Dublin and later at The Sorbonne in France.
- He has worked at various manual jobs, and professionally as an editor, screenwriter, journalist, and lecturer.
- His parents worked in the traditional local industries of Belfast. His father was the family breadwinner and worked in the local shipyard; his mother had worked in a linen factory.
- The terror of air raids and blackouts impacted on his infancy in the 1940’s.
- In his childhood, Mahon as a single child and loner developed the habit of observing and thinking about the things around him.
- From his experience as a choirboy, Mahon developed a feeing for the rhythm of hymns. This influence led him to emphasise form and technique in his poetry.
- Mahon's cultural reference point was Northern Ireland's planter culture with its sense of besiegement and its crusading instinct, its sectarian outlook and the violence involved in upholding its dominant position in the two nation province he grew up in.
- Though Mahon’s family were not zealous about biblical Protestantism, his social and educational context was Protestant. Mahon grew to reject the limitations of the planter culture and its outlook.
- Mahon longed to add to his inherited cultural influences by travelling. His poetry reflects that self-education, that cultural re-conditioning he chose for himself. Thus, he transcended the influences of his birthplace.
- Mahon's poetry demonstrates his desire to set his initial experience of Belfast, his local context, within an international context. There's a vibrant and varied sense of place in Mahon’s poetry, usually from his outsider’s angle.
- Mahon has spent much of his adult life away from Northern Ireland, mainly in London, America, Canada, Kinsale and nowadays in Dublin.
- Thus, Mahon has chosen to be an exile, for both artistic and cultural reasons.
- The artist in Mahon required him to be unattached. The barbaric strife of the troubles deepened his alienation. But as well as rejecting his roots he sought the loneliness and impartiality of the exile in order to write his kind of poetry. In so choosing, he was following in the footsteps of great Irish writers like James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.
- Thus, he is cosmopolitan by vocation, as well as an exile due to alienation. Hence, Mahon’s great opening line ‘Even now there are places where a thought might grow’ in ‘A Disused Shed’.
- His poems deal with outsiders, the past, abandonment, culture, identity, suppression, denial, longing, the brutality of history and the possibility of future redemption.
- His poetry is rhythmical, clinical, polished and intellectual. Mahon is an urbane aesthete.
- Mahon regards poetry as the creation of art out of words. For Mahon style is more important than theme.
- Mahon’s poems come across to the readers as pronouncements. His speakers impart the poems as a kind of oration. They expound.
Themes
1. Theme of identity.
Mahon is uneasy with his identity and feels estranged from his background. He recollects, mocks, criticises and rejects the essence of his Northern Irish identity and cultural roots: the austerity, the coldness, the selfishness, the isolation and the abandonment.
He criticises the bitter, joyless and repressive Protestant culture:
‘the dank churches, the empty streets, the shipyard silence, the tied-up swings’ [Ecclesiastes]
He faults the self-righteous, individualistic ethos of Protestant culture:
‘and not feel called upon to understand and forgive
but only to speak with a bleak afflatus’ [Ecclesiastes]
He censures the bleak, biblical and bigoted leaders of Protestant culture:
‘stand on a corner stiff
with rhetoric, promising nothing under the sun’ [Ecclesiastes]
He condemns the brutality of the state as it pursues fugitives:
‘We hunted the mad bastard’ [As it Should Be]
He criticises the isolationist stance of unionism in Ulster and also reprimands those who abandoned Ulster to its fate:
‘A half century, without visitors, in the dark’ [Disused Shed]
He mocks the working class for harbouring killers and their bombs:
‘Bombs doze in the housing estates’ [Rathlin]
He condemns the atrocities of Planter history:
‘the unspeakable violence’ [Rathlin]
He expresses contempt for the repressive and drab influence of religion and history. He despises his dreary cultural baggage:
‘The kind of rain we knew is a thing of the past—
Deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say,
Browsing on spire and bogland’ [Kinsale]
2. Theme of place.
There is a vibrant, evocative and varied sense of place in Mahon’s poetry. Places like Kinsale, Rathlin and Donegal are idealised, but there is a subtext of cruelty associated with all three places because of history, climate, nature or commerce. Other places are depicted as void of human activity, lonesome, glum and abandoned by hope. The selection of poems on the course, influenced by Mahon, include two place names that span Ireland from North to South, Rathlin and Kinsale. You should compare the contexts by examining what the last line of both poems has to say about the future.
An idealised rural, coastal beauty spot:
‘the nearby hills were a deeper green
Than anywhere in the world’ [Donegal]
A rural, coastal beauty spot which has become a refuge:
‘a lonely house behind the sea
Where the tide leaves broken toys and hat boxes’ [Titanic]
A dreary, abstemious, sombre Belfast on the Protestant Sabbath:
‘the dank churches, the empty streets, the shipyard silence, the tied-up swings’ [Ecclesiastes]
A rugged and romantic landscape in the West of Ireland:
‘Through bog, moor land, rock, to the starlit west’ [As it Should Be]
A ravaged colonial mine, Inca wealth, abandoned by its pillagers:
‘Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation’ [Disused Shed]
A ruined, deserted imperial slave compound in Colonial India:
‘Indian compounds where the wind dances
And a door bangs with diminished confidence’ [Disused Shed]
A wrecked dilapidated plot, the end-point for the dispossessed:
‘Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins’ [Disused Shed]
A grim coastal resort becoming hospitable for commercial reason as winter ends:
‘And the doors that were shut all winter
Against the north wind and the sea-mist
Lie open to the street’ [Portrush]
A Rural idyll, a green space beyond the frontier of a sectarian society:
‘the light of heaven upon the hills of Donegal’ [Portrush]
A beautiful idealised place, a sanctuary—thus mocking history:
‘The whole island a sanctuary where amazed
Oneiric species whistle and chatter,
Evacuating rock-face and cliff top.
Cerulean distance, an oceanic haze’ [Rathlin]
A landscape of extreme weather and steep climbs, requiring inhuman endurance, a place where the stoical Protestant can be a hero:
‘The tent recedes beneath its crust of rime
And frostbite is replaced by vertigo’ [Antarctica]
A gay and colourful place, perceived as an ideal place:
‘Our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
Our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
Like racehorses’ [Kinsale]
3. Theme of people.
Mahon evokes diverse human personalities and often empathises with various characters in his poetry:
A quirky, on the go, mysterious, cautious and wily grandfather. He is a craftsman who can’t forsake his craft. Some of the grandfather’s attributes mirror an obsessive, impish poet:
‘Wounded but humorous…
discreetly up to no good…
Never there when you call…
as cute as they come…
Nothing escapes him; he escapes us all’ [Grandfather]
Posh, swanky, guilt-struck, aghast, brooding and solitary Bruce Ismay:
‘I turned to ice to hear my costly
Life go thundering down in a pandemonium…
my poor soul screams out in the starlight’ [Titanic]
Decrepit, croaky, wizened and gaunt captives of autocracy:
‘Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
And insomnia’ [Disused Shed]
A free-spirited student:
‘A girl strides past the Northern Counties Hotel,
Light-footed, swinging a book-bag’ [Portrush]
A wistful and buoyant oriental restaurateur in exile:
‘The proprietor… whistles a little tune, dreaming of home’ [Portrush]
A beautifully named but stymied Gaelic leader:
‘Somhairle Bui, powerless on the mainland,
Heard the screams of the Rathlin women’ [Rathlin]
A brave, patrician, stoical and self-sacrificing British Explorer:
‘Goading his ghost into the howling snow;
He is just going outside and may be some time’ [Antarctica]
But sometimes Mahon evokes personalities without empathy:
A dutiful, prim, pious, ascetic, browbeating, crafty and grinning cleric:
‘God-fearing, God-
chosen purist little puritan that,
for all your wiles and smiles, you are’ [Ecclesiastes]
A smug, vindictive, intolerant, sinister defender of state murder:
‘We hunted the mad bastard…
Let us here no idle talk…
To a world with method in it’ [As it Should Be]
4. Theme of conflict:
Mahon deals with the theme of conflict in various guises:
Subtle tensions in family life:
‘Never there when you call…he escapes us all’ [Grandfather]
Nature’s battle against human civilisation:
‘That night the slow sea washed against my head,
Performing its immeasurable erosions…
Muttering its threat to villages of landfall’ [Donegal]
Self-conflict, self-criticism and regret:
‘Cursing my constant failure to take due forethought’ [Donegal]
Conflict between an individual and public opinion, media driven conflict:
‘They said I got away in a boat
And humbled me at the inquiry’ [Titanic]
Class difference, and conflict:
‘I drown again with all those dim
Lost faces I never understood’ [Titanic]
Inner conflict due to guilt and victimisation:
‘my poor soul screams out in the starlight’ [Titanic]
The poet’s conflict with his cultural heritage of Protestant demagoguery:
‘stand on a corner stiff with rhetoric’ [Ecclesiastes]
Conflict between brutal state forces and a revolutionary:
‘We hunted the mad bastard’ [As it should be]
Social Conflict, survival of the fittest:
‘Those nearest the door growing strong –
‘Elbow room! Elbow room!’
The rest, dim in a twilight of crumbling’ [Disused Shed]
Conflict between the oppressed and the oppressors:
‘Powdery prisoners of the old regime…
Lost people of Treblinka…!’ [Disused Shed]
Xenophobia, resentment toward outsiders:
‘In time for the first seasonal ‘invasion’’ [Portrush]
Massacre of natives by invaders:
‘A long time since the last scream cut short…
the screams of the Rathlin women …’ [Rathlin]
Brave self-sacrifice of the hero contrasted to cowardice of the group:
‘Need we consider it some sort of crime,
This numb self-sacrifice of the weakest’ [Antarctica]
5. Theme of history.
Personal History:
‘to reveal the landscape of a childhood
Only he can recapture’ [Grandfather]
‘a framed photograph of Hong Kong’ [Portrush]
Maritime History:
‘my costly life go thundering down in a pandemonium of
Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime’ [Titanic]
Social History:
‘the dank churches, the empty streets, the shipyard silence, the tied-up swings’ [Ecclesiastes]
Tradition:
‘the heaped graves of your fathers’ [Ecclesiastes]
Political History:
‘gunned him down in a blind yard’ [As it Should Be]
History of the Conquistadors:
‘Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned’ [Disused Shed]
History of Colonial Britain:
‘Indian compounds’ [Disused Shed]
History of the Irish Civil War:
‘civil war days’ [Disused Shed]
The Span of time:
‘Magi, moonmen’ [Disused Shed]
‘Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii’ [Disused Shed]
Nazi History, history of genocide:
‘Lost people of Treblinka ‘ [Disused Shed]
Archaeology, Classical History, Geological History:
‘Pompeii’ [Disused Shed]
History of Oppressed People:
‘come so far in darkness and in pain’ [Disused Shed]
History of the Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland, history of genocide :
‘A long time since the last scream cut shot…
But here they are through with history…
A long time since the unspeakable violence—
Since Somhairle Bui, powerless on the mainland,
Heard the screams of the Rathlin women’ [Rathlin]
‘a thing of the past’ [Kinsale]
History of Scott’s Antarctic Expedition:
‘I am just going outside and may be some time’ [Antarctica]
6. The theme of the Future:
Fear of the inevitability of death:
‘His shrewd eyes bolt the door and set the clock
Against the future’ [Grandfather]
Failure to plan for the future:
‘no promise of rescue—
Cursing my constant failure to take due
Forethought for this’ [Daytrip to Donegal]
An image of a rule bound and over planned future society:
‘They will thank us for it when they grow up
To a world with method in it’ [As it Should Be]
Desperate hope for future redemption:
‘Let not our naïve labours have been in vain’ [Disused Shed]
A future that resembles a violent past:
‘Unsure among the pitching surfaces
Whether the future lies before us or behind’ [Rathlin]
A future free from the past:
‘a future forbidden to no one’ [Kinsale]
Poetic Techniques
There are many detailed examples of the poetic techniques used by Mahon illustrated in Grandfather and After The Titanic on the Ordinary Level English web pages.
Sound Effects
The colour coding for sound repetition is as follows:
Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of first letters
Assonance
Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds.
Internal Rhyme or Cross Rhyme or Conventional (end of line) Rhyme
Internal Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming within a line
Cross Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming across two or more lines
Consonance, including sibilance [or sibilant sounds].
Consonance is repetition of consonant sounds. Sibilance is repetition of ‘s’ sounds
Consonance, Cross Rhyme and Internal Rhyme may incorporate Alliteration and Assonance.
Try to add your own further examples to those below.
If you refer to these techniques when answering on a poet, state their purpose in re-enforcing meaning or creating the language construct that a poem is. Present them as evidence of the poet’s craft. Always argue that the verbal music or sound effects add to the lyrical quality of the images and make the poem an impressive piece of art.
The following are sample analyses that you should try to repeat on other poems, especially if you have not studied the poems analysed:
‘God, you could grow to love, it, God-fearing, God-
chosen purist little puritan that,
for all your wiles and smiles, you are’
Note the three examples of internal rhyme in this three-line quote from ‘Ecclesiastes’: ‘God’, ‘pur’ and ‘iles’. This repetition mirrors the repetitive diction of a preacher. Note also the four alliterating ‘g’ sounds in the first line. Mahon achieves a hymn like effect with his diction.
Note how the consonance interlinks the present with the process or remembering that is described in this sentence from ‘Grandfather’. There are eight uses of ‘r’. The consonance is deepened by the internal rhyme of the three ‘row’ sounds in the first line of the quote.
‘Boiler -rooms, row upon row of gantries rolled
Away to reveal the landscape of a childhood
Only he can recapture.’
Note how the alliterating ‘g’ and the assonance pattern of the deep ‘a’, ‘ey’, ‘a’ sounds emphasise the sombre description of the sea in ‘Day trip to Donegal’:
‘the grave grey of the sea the grimmer in that enclave’.
In the same poem consonance, sibilance, line rhyme and cross-rhyme create a verbal music that matches meaning.
‘That night the slow sea washed against my head,
Performing its immeasurable erosions—
Spilling into the skull, marbling the stones
That spine the very harbour wall,
Muttering its threat to villages of landfall’
The first three lines, with their sibilance, are a strong example of onomatopoeia. The consonance, created by the recurring ‘m’, reinforces this effect, as sound matches meaning. Line rhyme is achieved when ‘erosions’ rhymes with ‘stones’, ‘wall’ with ‘landfall’. Note the cross-rhyme achieved with the three ‘ing’ sounds’. All these effects echo both the crashing of the waves and the hushed ‘s’ sound that is permanently associated with the sea. Because the imagery is used to evoke a nightmare, the musical effects here are so dramatic they remind us of opera.
Note how the alliterating ‘w’ sounds enhance the impact of the image in this line from ‘A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford’:
‘With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud’.
Note the soft ‘s’ alliteration and the sharp ‘r’ consonance on both sides of this well balanced phrase in ‘Portrush’, with the contrast between ‘softening’ and ‘sharp’:
‘Softening the sharp air’
Consider the musical effects achieved by the sombre ‘d’ sound alliterating in the following quote from ‘Kinsale’:
‘Deep-delving, dark, deliberate’.
Rhyme
Read the notes about rhyme in Grandfather and After the Titanic on the Ordinary Level English web pages.
In ‘Day Trip to Donegal’ Mahon writes in six line stanzas made up of three rhyming couplets: aa bb cc.
‘Ecclesiastes’ is written in blank verse.
‘As it Should Be’ lacks a rhyming pattern, as is to be expected in a free verse lyric.
‘A Disused Shed’ has varying amounts of rhyming but without an overall pattern.
‘The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush’ has some rhymes and half-rhymes but without an overall pattern.
‘Rathlin’ also has an irregular rhyming pattern.
‘Antartica’ has a regular pattern in its three line stanzas: aba aba etc.
‘Kinsale’ has the unusual pattern abbcbac.
Rhythm
In some poems the rhythm is light while in others it is complex and orchestral.
Grandfather - the rhythm is partly defined by the strict sonnet form, but Mahon gives it a natural feeling with his run on lines and simple everyday words. The poem feels like an anecdote, a spoken story, naturally addressed to the reader.
Day trip to Donegal-the rhythm is musical with a varying beat pattern.
After the Titanic- the rhythm has a natural feeling with the run on lines and simple everyday words. The poem feels like a cry from the heart naturally addressed to the reader. There is a dignity to the rhythm provided by the regular line lengths. Each pair of lines is a unit. The uneven lines have four beats while the even lines have six beats—some of which are hard to define.
Ecclesiastes- Varying line rhythm, the poem consists of a series of statements that resemble the oratory of a manic bible preacher.
As it Should Be-mainly three beats per line, with five and four beat variations.
A Disused Shed in Co.Wexford-weighty rhythm, varying between four and five beat lines.
The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush-note the regular four beat line
Rathlin- note the regular four beat line
Antarctica- note the regular four beat lines with chorus or refrain.
Kinsale- note the regular five beat lines
If you wish to make a comment on rhythm, link it to verbal music. Try to establish a connection between rhythm and the themes of the poet.
Tones
There is immense variety of tone in Mahon’s poetry. Here are some examples to add to your own favourites.
Factual: ‘They brought him in on a stretcher’ [Grandfather]
Humorous, wry: ‘discretely up to no good’ [Grandfather]
Dark, threatening: ‘then his light goes out’ [Grandfather]
Matter-of-fact: ‘ things to be done, clothes to be picked up’ [Donegal]
Gloomy and ominous: ‘Grave grey of the sea the grimmer’ [Donegal]
Disgusted, fascinated: ‘A writhing glimmer of fish’ [Donegal]
Bemused: ‘And still the fish come in year after year’ [Donegal]
Resigned, mocking: ‘Give me a ring, goodnight, and so to bed’ [Donegal]
Scared, pleading, ironic: ‘contriving vain overtures to the vindictive wind and rain’ [Donegal]
Ironic and self-pitying: ‘I tell you I sank as far that night as any hero’ [Titanic]
There is also a note or edge of despair in the word ‘sank’ here
Factual, yet comical: ‘Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches’ [Titanic]
Horror: ‘I turned to ice ’, ‘pandemonium’, ‘soul screams out in the starlight’ [Tit]
Guilty, insightful: ‘all those dim lost faces I never understood’ [Titanic]
Despair: ‘I drown again’ [Titanic]
Mocking, satirical: ‘stand on a corner stiff with rhetoric’ [Ecclesiastes]
Bitter, scathing: ‘this is your country, close one eye and be king’ [Ecclesiastes]
Cutting, cynical: ‘their heavy washing flaps for you in the housing estates’ [Ecc]
Despicable, vile: ‘We hunted the mad bastard’ [As it Should Be]
Cruel, vicious, murderous: ‘gunned him down in a blind yard’ [As it Should Be]
Smug, self-righteous: ‘This is as it should be. They will thank us for it’ [As it]
Philosophical: ‘Even now there are places where a thought might grow’ [Shed]
Melancholy, poignant: ‘An echo trapped forever’ [Disused Shed]
Bizarre, odd: ‘Dog corners for bone burials’ [Disused Shed]
Eerie, doomed, lonesome: ‘gravel-crunching, interminable departure of the expropriated mycologist’ [Disused Shed]
Urgent: ‘Elbow room! Elbow room!’ [Disused Shed]
Loathsome: ‘in a twilight of crumbling utensils and broken flower-pots’ [Shed]
Panic-stricken: ‘‘Save us, save us,’ they seem to say’ [Disused Shed]
Mellow, sharp tones contrasted: ‘Softening the sharp air of the coast’ [Port]
Yearning: ‘whistles a little tune, dreaming of home’ [Portrush]
Brutal and ghostly: ‘A long time since the last scream cut short.
Then an unnatural silence’ [Rathlin]
Tranquil: ‘Oneiric species whistle and chatter’ [Rathlin]
Menacing: ‘Bombs doze in the housing estates’ [Rathlin]
Deceptive: ‘I am just going outside and may be some time’ [Antarctica]
Disparaging: ‘The others nod, pretending not to know’ [Antarctica]
Amazed, wry: ‘Goading his ghost into the howling snow’ [Antarctica]
Astute, ironic: ‘At the heart of the ridiculous the sublime’ [Antarctica]
Forgiving: ‘Need we consider it some sort of crime,
This numb self-sacrifice of the weakest? No’ [Antarctica]
Cheerful, urbane: ‘Our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay like racehorses’ [Kinsale]
Positive: ‘a future forbidden to no one’ [Kinsale]
Imagery
Many of the Themes illustrated above are also lists of images e.g. images of place, images of people etc.
Nature imagery is used a lot in Mahon’s poetry. There are some recurring nature images in Mahon’s Poetry.
A good example is the recurring sea imagery.
References to the sea occur eleven times in the poems on the syllabus:
‘We reached the sea in the early afternoon’ [Donegal]
‘The sea receding down each muddy lane’ [Donegal]
‘and the grave Grey of the sea the grimmer in that enclave’ [Donegal]
‘That night the slow sea washed against my head,
Performing its immeasurable erosions’ [Donegal]
‘At dawn I was alone out at sea’ [Donegal]
‘Now I hide in a lonely house behind the sea
Where the tide leaves broken toys and hat boxes’ [Titanic]
‘the old man stays in bed
On seaward mornings after nights of wind’ [Titanic]
‘the doors that were shut all winter
Against the north wind and the sea-mist’ [Portrush]
‘an ideogram on sea-cloud’ [Portrush]
‘Nothing but sea smoke to the ice-cap’ [Rathlin]
‘a lone light which repeats
One simple statement to the turbulent sea.’ [Rathlin]
References to rain occur five times.
‘contriving vain overtures to the vindictive wind and rain’ [Donegal]
‘and love the January rains when they
darken the dark doors and sink hard
into the Antrim hills’ [Ecclesiastes]
‘Lime crevices behind rippling rainbarrels’ [Disused Shed]
‘and light since then
Is a keyhole rusting gently after rain’ [Disused Shed]
‘The kind of rain we knew is a thing of the past’ [Kinsale]
Other examples of nature imagery:
‘bog, moor land, rock, to the starlit west’ [As it Should Be]
‘the nearby hills were a deeper green
Than anywhere in the world’ [Donegal]
‘So many days beyond the rhododendrons
With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud’ [Disused Shed]
‘A natural silence, slowly broken
By the shearwater; by the sporadic conversation of crickets’ [Rathlin]
Metaphor
‘Let us here no idle talk
Of the moon in the yellow river’ [As it Should Be]
‘With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud’ [Disused Shed]
‘the grim dominion of stale air and rank moisture’ [Disused Shed]
‘Magi, moonmen’ [Disused Shed]
‘the flashbulb firing squad’ [Disused Shed]
‘the light of heaven upon the hills of Donegal’ [Portrush]
‘Goading his ghost into the howling snow’ [Antarctica]
‘the earthly pantomime’ [Antarctica]
Personification:
‘the slow…sea muttering its threat to villages of landfall’ [Donegal]
‘Herring and mackerel, flopping about the deck
In attitudes of agony and heartbreak’ [Donegal]
‘groaning for their deliverance, have been so long expectant’ [Disused Shed]
‘They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith’ [Disused Shed]
‘‘Save us, save us,’ they seem to say’ [Disused Shed]
‘where one by one the gulls go window-shopping’ [Portrush]
‘the sporadic conversation of crickets’ [Rathlin]
‘the odd somnolent freighter’ [Rathlin]
‘Bombs doze in the housing estates’ [Rathlin]
Symbol:
‘the tide leaves broken toys and hat boxes silently at my door’ [Titanic]
‘Bury that red
bandana and stick, that banjo’ [Ecclesiastes]
‘their heavy washing
flaps for you in the housing estates’ [Ecclesiastes]
‘the moon in the yellow river’ [As it Should Be]
‘A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole’ [A Disused Shed]
‘the expropriated mycologist’ [Disused Shed]
Analogy:
[An analogy is a simile or metaphor that functions as a parallel image. An analogy may involve an extended comparison]
‘That night the slow sea washed against my head’ [Donegal]
‘At dawn I was alone out at sea’ [Donegal]
‘A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole’ [Disused Shed]
Simile:
‘banging round the house like a four-year-old’ [Grandfather]
‘heart breaks loose and rolls like a stone’ [Titanic]
‘stalked like triffids’ [Disused Shed]
‘Our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
Like racehorses’ [Kinsale]
In addition to various techniques of sound, tone and imagery, there are many examples of different language techniques found in Mahon’s poetry.
Apostrophe [direct address]:
‘Your people await you’ [Ecclesiastes]
Paradox [apparent contradiction]
‘At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime’ [Antarctica]
Logic (argument).
Mahon communicates by direct statement as well as by imagery and symbol. Some poems depend a lot on our ability to interpret the figurative language. But some lines contain a statement or argument that points to the theme and help us understand the imagery.
Many of the quotes for Themes above contain examples of such statements.
Here are three illustrations of direct argument in Mahon:
‘not feel called upon to understand and forgive’ [Ecclesiastes]
‘This is as it should be.
They will thank us for it when they grow up
To a world with method in it’ [As it Should Be]
‘And frostbite is replaced by vertigo’ [Antarctica]
If you study the final line or statement in each of your selected Mahon poems, you will observe that the poems end on a clinching statement that clarifies the intended meaning of the poem.
Note how certain phrases confer meaning on the unusual blend of images that precede them. The final phrase of ‘Kinsale’ is a good example of this slightly didactic feature of Mahon’s poetry:
‘a future forbidden to no one’.
This short poem, therefore, contrasts the light-hearted prospects for the future, with the dismal experience of the past. See the note above in the sound effects section.
Note how the final words of ‘Rathlin’ focus us on the theme of this reflective poem: ‘Whether the future lies before us or behind’.
This didactic feature is further illustrated in ‘Antarctica’ with the chorus line, which colours how we receive the narrative implications of the imagery:
‘At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime’.
Compound Words:
‘Deep-delving’ [Kinsale]
‘God-chosen´[Ecclesiastes]
‘gravel-crunching’ [Disused Shed]
‘Web-throated´ [Disused Shed]
‘dream-time’ [Rathlin]
Apt use of language:
Note how the strong verbs in this stanza from ‘Day trip to Donegal’ create atmosphere:
‘That night the slow sea washed against my head,
Performing its immeasurable erosions—
Spilling into the skull, marbling the stones
That spine the very harbour wall,
Muttering its threat to villages of landfall’
The verbs ‘marbling’ and ‘spine’ are unusual, eerie and haunting.
The verbs evoke certain characteristics of both the sea and dreams:
Relentless; ‘washed’.
Pervasive, invasive; ‘spilling’.
Polishing, hardening or smoothing effect; ‘marbling’.
Their insidious nature; ‘muttering’.
The first three lines, with their sibilance, are an example of onomatopoeia. The consonance, created by the recurring ‘m’, reinforces this effect, as sound matches meaning.
The overall impact of the language here is nightmarish, and perfectly achieves the stated of mind Mahon wishes to evoke.
Consider the following examples and develop your own comment on them with the help of many previous sections on this page:
‘discreetly up to no good’ [Grandfather]
‘grave grey of the sea the grimmer in that enclave’ [Donegal]
‘A writhing glimmer’ [Donegal]
‘In attitudes of agony heartbreak’ [Donegal]
‘a pandemonium of Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime’ [Titanic]
‘gravel-crunching, interminable departure of the expropriated mycologist’ [Disused Shed]
‘This numb self-sacrifice of the weakest’ [Antarctica]
Colloquial expression:
‘Give me a ring, goodnight, and so to bed’ [Donegal]
‘We hunted the mad bastard’ [As it Should be]
Hyperbole (exaggeration):
Exaggeration is integral to poetry.
‘God-fearing, God-
chosen purist little puritan’ [Ecclesiastes]
Balance [Antithesis]
‘Nothing escapes him; he escapes us all’ [Grandfather]
‘shelter your cold heart from the heat’ [Ecclesiastes]
‘At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime’ [Antarctica]
Allusion:
There is a direct reference to the bible:
‘nourish a fierce zeal
with locusts and wild honey’ [Ecclesiastes]
Form:
Grandfather -Sonnet
Day trip to Donegal-Lyric with regular stanzas.
After the Titanic-Lamentation
Ecclesiastes- Satirical Verse Paragraph
As it Should Be-Lyric in free verse
A Disused Shed in Co.Wexford-a Meditation in regular ten line stanzas
The Chinese Restaurant in Portrush-Lyric
Rathlin-Lyric in ten line stanzas
Antarctica-Villanelle,
Kinsale-short Lyric
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