CATHAL Ó SEARCAIGH
"What is pitiable is to compare any Irish poet to his English 'superiors'. This is the type of neo-colonial mess which we wake up to each morning in the Anglosphere, I'm afraid!
Have a look at the Index to the newly-published „Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Poetry“
http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Handbook-Modern-Poetry-Handbooks/dp/0199561249
My friend and contemporary CATHAL Ó SEARCAIGH doesn't get a mention!
It is ridiculous. He is a poet of world standing! Oxford should know that.
What is wrong with them?
I attach some poems of his in my translation. Please post them on your site as a downloadable attachment, perhaps? (For reading purposes only, not for reproduction elsewhere).
His memoirs, published by Simon & Schuster are also worth reading."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Light-Distant-Hills-A-Memoir/dp/1847370632
Gabriel Rosenstock
29.12.2012
In a Grave Time:
poems by Cathal Ó Searcaigh
Translated from the Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock
In A Grave Time |
An tAm Marfach ina Mairimid |
The sky today as translucent as the Buddha’s omniscient eye: a white dove flew by
Its bright angelic wings spelled out hope – could it be – hope in this infirmity?
The words were not out of my mouth when a shot was fired. The sky an ocean of blood. No lie.
I cannot look up to the heavens without seeing on the ground the dove that fell to earth without a sound.
Today, strange as it is to claim, all the love I have for God is drowned in that bird’s blood.
How can I look any more at a sky that is gore, nothing but gore.
|
Inniu is an spéir chomh soiléir le súil lánléargais an Bhúda chonaic mé colmán bán ag triall tharam
A sciathán geal aingil ag tuar dóchais, a deirim liom féin, as an duibheagán seo ina mairim
Ach ní raibh na focla as mo bhéal nuair a chuala mé an t-urchar. Fágadh an spéir dearg le fuil an éin ghlé.
Inniu níl spléachadh dá dtugaim ar an spéir nach léir domh mo cholmán bán, a choirpín mín marbh ag titim ó ghorm go talamh.
Inniu agus ní ag maíomh atá mé tá a bhfuil ionam de ghrá Dé báite i bhfuil dhearg an éin sin.
Ní thig liom m’aghaidh a thabhairt níos mó ar spéir atá ag cur fola ar spéir atá ag cur fola. |
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