Irish Poetry - Patrick Kavanagh

 

Epic
by Patrick Kavanagh

I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided: who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting 'Damn your soul'
And old McCabe, stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel –
'Here is the march along these iron stones'.
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was most important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.

 

Perspective on "Epic" from The Poetry Archive

Two of his most famous poems are included in the Archive, both of which demonstrate the appeal of his "rough immediacy" (The Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry). Kavanagh was proud to call himself a parochial poet, which he defined as being the opposite of provincialism. While the provincial man looks to the opinion of the metropolis, the parochial "is never in any doubt about the social and artistic validity of his parish" (Patrick Kavanagh). This is the spirit which infuses 'Kerr's Ass' with its proud assertion that, despite the poverty of the community in which it is set, the God of Imagination can be found waking in Mucker, the townland of Kavanagh's birth. His poem 'Epic' stakes his claim to the importance of the local even more directly, arguing that myths can be made out of a "local row". Its combination of sturdy colloquialism and the sophistication of the sonnet form captures the paradox of Kavanagh's life and work. His gravely, unpretentious delivery is entirely in keeping with the poems' ethos.