Derek Mahon - Personnal Response
‘A long time since the unspeakable violence –
Since Somhairle Bui, powerless on the mainland
Heard the screams of the Rathlin women’
Rathlin.
The second I finished reading ‘Rathlin’ I knew that it impacted me deeply, and that I learnt the joys of reading Mahon’s poetry as it is a thoroughly rewarding experience. Instantaneously I gained a sense of history from reading it. The depiction of a dilapidated fortress infested with shrubbery and which was deserted as a consequence and the atrocities that were committed there in the past was almost etched onto my brain. Among the brilliance of the language the and poetic style the thing that impeded my thoughts was the question posed at the closing stanza of the poem, will we let the past influence us now and commit such acts of devastations again or will we learn that these acts were horrific and come to more peaceful solutions when tackling the divisions now.
The poems of Derek Mahon have rewarded me with an experience to admire jointly his poetry as well as himself and the area which he grew up in, Northern Ireland. He is mastered in the art to describe elegant scenes, also to give impressions of places with a charm, which gives the scene both depth and beauty. He is able to remove himself from the present and speak without inhibition of it, removing bias, although there is an urge to when dealing with the more volatile topics. When asked do I feel that reading the poetry of Derek Mahon is a rewarding experience, I say it is a thoroughly rewarding experience for all of any age, the poems of Mahon also contain a great style of imagery and sense of place, these poems also pose the question of past can shape the present. With ‘A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford’ Mahon elaborates eloquently how suppression and violence from the past have detrimental effects on the present. ‘As It Should Be’ explores the history of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and this interlinks with ‘Ecclesiastes’ is showing bigotry in
Since Somhairle Bui, powerless on the mainland
Heard the screams of the Rathlin women’
Rathlin.
The second I finished reading ‘Rathlin’ I knew that it impacted me deeply, and that I learnt the joys of reading Mahon’s poetry as it is a thoroughly rewarding experience. Instantaneously I gained a sense of history from reading it. The depiction of a dilapidated fortress infested with shrubbery and which was deserted as a consequence and the atrocities that were committed there in the past was almost etched onto my brain. Among the brilliance of the language the and poetic style the thing that impeded my thoughts was the question posed at the closing stanza of the poem, will we let the past influence us now and commit such acts of devastations again or will we learn that these acts were horrific and come to more peaceful solutions when tackling the divisions now.
The poems of Derek Mahon have rewarded me with an experience to admire jointly his poetry as well as himself and the area which he grew up in, Northern Ireland. He is mastered in the art to describe elegant scenes, also to give impressions of places with a charm, which gives the scene both depth and beauty. He is able to remove himself from the present and speak without inhibition of it, removing bias, although there is an urge to when dealing with the more volatile topics. When asked do I feel that reading the poetry of Derek Mahon is a rewarding experience, I say it is a thoroughly rewarding experience for all of any age, the poems of Mahon also contain a great style of imagery and sense of place, these poems also pose the question of past can shape the present. With ‘A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford’ Mahon elaborates eloquently how suppression and violence from the past have detrimental effects on the present. ‘As It Should Be’ explores the history of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and this interlinks with ‘Ecclesiastes’ is showing bigotry in