Thomas McCarthy
(Ireland)
INVITATION TO THE MADONNA
(‘Cuireadh Do Mhuire’ by Máirtín O Direáin, 1942)
And do you know, Mother of God,
Where you will be going this year
Searching for your shelter,
Even for a Blessed Child,
When every door in the world
Is slammed in the face of you
By all the contempt and pride
Of this human world?
And would you accept from me
This true invitation
To an island in the seas
Of the far and remote West:
There candles will glow brightly
In every candle-lit window,
And every hearthstone will be kindled
With the blaze of turf fires.
BROWN EYES
(‘Súile Donna’ by Seán O Ríordáin, 1971)
Hers are the eyes I see
In this little skull of a boy –
It was an epiphany of beauty
To have her eyes upon you then;
An intimate encounter it was
With her body and her mind,
A thousand years would pass in seconds
With eyes like those upon you.
Those eyes were hers alone,
Now strange to see them in her son,
Embarrassing now to think of her,
Her brown eyes inside a man.
To see eyes equalled in time
Barely causes tears to flow,
Now that a boy has eyes to speak
To me of such a womanhood –
What poet could make
A greater lapse of taste than this?
Should I alter all my text to fit
This new arrangement in a boy?
She was not the first one
To look upon them in a male,
Nor is his the very last face
To host such eyes, I think.
Is that all there is of immortality
That some essence of our eyes
Through motherhood and fatherhood
Survives perfectly inside a son?
THE MILD SOUTH
( ‘Do Shiúlaigh Mise An Mhumhain Mhín’ by Aogán O Rathaille c1670-1726)
I walked all over the deep mild South,
From an oak-wood shelter to the fort of Kings,
My anxiety unrelieved, though I thought
Of past blessings, ‘til I reached Tadhg’s mansion.
It pleased my mind and also my heart
To see the dead Irish walking again,
Youngsters feasting on meat and wine,
Punch being shared and brandy too.
Meat from the cleaver, birds of the sea,
Music and singing, a craving for whiskey,
Sweet roasts and combs of honey,
Packs of hounds, dogs having their fill,
Hunters leaving and hunters’ arrival,
Friends pleasantly chatting, all hanging on,
The devout praying on clean slates;
Such meekness to melt God’s heaven –
Until one of the dead reminded me
It was Lord Warner now resided there
Instead of an ancient, famous Gael,
A prince ever kind to the wanderer.
Oh God Who created this world of war,
Who gave meat and mansions to the Irish dead,
To scribes and priests, to gifted poets, give us
Back our great, our true-hearted Tadgh.
THE HOUSEWIFE’S CREED
( ‘Cré na Mná Tí’ by Máire Mhac an tSaoí, 1973)
See, I maintain the brightest household
And a whole family disciplined –
in washing and scrubbing and cleaning,
Preparing dinners, milking the cows,
Even turning mattresses, beating rugs.
But, in the manner of Sheherzade, you
Must succumb, also, to my gifted poems.
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BIO
Thomas McCarthy is an Irish poet, novelist, and critic, born in Cappoquin, County Waterford, and educated at University College, Cork. Along with Maurice Riordan, Gregory O’Donoghue, Theo Dorgan, William Wall, Gerry Murphy, and Greg Delanty, he was part of a resurgence of literary activity under the inspiration of Sean Lucy and John Montague.
He has published eight poetry collections, seven of them with Anvil Press Poetry, including The Sorrow Garden, The Lost Province, Mr Dineen’s Careful Parade, The Last Geraldine Officer (“a major achievement”, in the view of academic and poet Maurice Harmon) and Merchant Prince, a combination of poems and a novella recounting the story of a Cork merchant, described as “an ambitious and substantive book” in Poetry Ireland Review. His new book, PANDEMONIUM, is published by Carcanet.
McCarthy won the Patrick Kavanagh Award for his first book when he was 24. Two years later he was selected for the International Writers Program in Iowa. His many awards include the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize (1981); the American-Irish Foundation’s Literary Award (1984); and the O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award, Irish-American Cultural Institute (1991). His fiction includes two novels, Without Power, and Asya and Christine. He has also published a memoir, The Garden of Remembrance.