P.J. Kavanagh: Collected Poems

by Kavanagh, P. J.

• ISBN13: 9781857542127
• ISBN10: 1857542126
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1992-01-01
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.

Summary

P.J.Kavanagh's poems are filled with praise, with the minute observations that transform a mood, or the dazzling recollection that can change the heart. 'If description is revelation,' wrote Derek Mahon in the Irish Times, 'his revelatory gift is prodigious. Now is the time to read P.J.Kavanagh.' The contents of seven collections are included in this comprehensive volume, which traces the poet through three and a half decades and ends with his remarkable human elegy and celebration of a beloved landscape, 'Severn Aisling', described by Frank Kermode as 'quite magnificent.'

Table of Contents

Dedication Poem	p. 12
Love Poem	p. 13
'Little Men, at Work'	p. 13
St. Thomas More	p. 14
Arbeit Macht Frei'	p. 16
To Darkness and to Me	p. 17
Narrative	p. 17
Natural History	p. 19
Serenade for Sally	p. 20
Declaration of Dependence	p. 20
Christmas Holiday	p. 21
Sad Song	p. 21
Recollected in Tranquility	p. 22
This Pilgrim by the Rhone at Avignon	p. 23
Yeats's Tower	p. 24
Handsome is as Handsome Does	p. 25
Speech from an Unwritten Play	p. 26
Beggar at the Villa d'Este	p. 26
Intimations of Unreality	p. 27
Lamentation of a Broken Silhouette	p. 28
'Nothing is Easy'	p. 29
Merton Garden	p. 30
Memo to Travellers	p. 31
Sonnet	p. 32
Niobe	p. 33
Gardens are Lonely Places	p. 33
A Refusal to Mourn Fashionably	p. 34
The Deep-sea Trends	p. 34
The Perky Traveller Ponders	p. 35
'While Three Men Stand Together'	p. 36
At a Public Rejoicing	p. 37
The Words of Mercury to a Muse	p. 37
The Devil Speaking	p. 38
Visitation	p. 39
Saint Tropez	p. 43
Dominus Illuminatio Mea	p. 43
Lines for my Father	p. 44
Plain Tale from the Hills	p. 45
The Spring	p. 46
August by the River	p. 47
Watch this Space	p. 47
Wherever You Are	p. 48
Westwell Churchyard, Oxfordshire	p. 49
Sequence	p. 50
On the Way to the Depot	p. 53
Afternoon in Sneem	p. 54
The Temperance Billiards Room	p. 56
In the Rubber Dinghy	p. 56
Perfection Isn't Like a Perfect Story	p. 57
Not Being a Man of Action	p. 58
Satire I (after Sir Thomas Wyatt)	p. 59
Diptyque touristique	p. 62
Goldie sapiens	p. 63
May	p. 63
No One	p. 64
Deathday	p. 65
Closing Down	p. 66
Conversations with Eckermann	p. 68
Birthday	p. 69
Surviving	p. 70
And Odysseus Wept	p. 71
Moving	p. 72
One	p. 75
Two	p. 79
Three	p. 81
Four	p. 83
Five	p. 86
Six	p. 89
Seven	p. 91
Eight	p. 97
Nine	p. 99
Ten	p. 101
Occasional Birds	p. 109
Sometimes	p. 110
For Bruno	p. 110
October	p. 111
Commuter	p. 112
The Day of the Shoot	p. 113
Eclogue	p. 114
Game	p. 118
The Famous Poet	p. 118
Sentimental Education	p. 119
Lover of Quietness	p. 120
Consolations	p. 121
Real Sky	p. 122
Winterpraise	p. 124
November the First	p. 125
A Box of Sons	p. 125
Like the Heron	p. 126
All I Want	p. 127
Child's Walk	p. 128
Spencer Park	p. 128
Driving Back	p. 129
Opened and Fastened	p. 129
Picture a Father	p. 130
And Light Fading	p. 131
Edward Thomas in Heaven	p. 131
The Clapham Elephants	p. 132
Sporting Occasion, Korea	p. 133
A Walk, a Small Event, a Dream	p. 134
Just Now	p. 136
Dome	p. 139
For Bruno	p. 139
Winter Hillside	p. 141
Father and Son	p. 141
Snapshots of New York and Hillsdale, N.Y.	p. 142
While the Sun Shines	p. 143
The Odd-job Hunter	p. 144
Where You Watching Are	p. 144
A Single Tree	p. 145
Don't Forget the Keeper, Sir	p. 146
A Great Gale, 1976	p. 146
Breakfast in Italy	p. 148
Ivor Gurney	p. 149
Spoleto 1967	p. 151
'A few still believe in heavenly reunions'	p. 152
News from Gloucestershire	p. 153
The Dead	p. 154
Simile	p. 154
After Reading the Life of Arthur McMurrough Kavanagh 1831-1889	p. 155
Vespers, and Notices, at Prinknash Abbey	p. 157
Gardening	p. 158
Beyond Decoration	p. 158
The Moon in Charge	p. 159
Sun Overcast	p. 160
Elder	p. 160
Dandelion	p. 161
Memory	p. 161
On Giglio	p. 163
Pilgrims	p. 164
Borris House, Co. Carlow	p. 164
For C.E.K.	p. 165
Spring Arrival	p. 166
Bread-and-Butter Letter	p. 167
Praying	p. 167
Seal	p. 168
Illness	p. 168
Air	p. 169
A Small World	p. 173
Late Acknowledgement	p. 174
Farmworker	p. 175
Ars est celare artem	p. 175
Birth of Middle Age	p. 176
Walmer Castle	p. 177
Politics	p. 178
Birthday Visit	p. 178
A Father Reorganises	p. 179
Prayer in Middle Age	p. 180
Heysel Stadium	p. 180
Token	p. 182
Drifts	p. 182
Beside the Bed	p. 185
Snowdrops	p. 186
Nature Poet	p. 186
Constitutional	p. 189
A Ghost Replies	p. 193
The Burning Bush	p. 193
Levels	p. 194
For Saint Cecilia	p. 194
The Old Notebook	p. 195
Autumn	p. 197
Memorial Service	p. 198
Chaos at Air Control	p. 199
No More Songs	p. 200
January Evening	p. 200
Blackbird in Fulham	p. 201
They Lift their Heads	p. 201
Minimal Prayer Suggestion	p. 202
In 'The Anglesea' Afterwards	p. 203
Natural History	p. 205
Invitation	p. 205
Afflatus	p. 206
Hope	p. 207
Cardinal Bird, West Virginia	p. 208
Calm in New York	p. 209
Falklands, 1982	p. 209
Whitsun	p. 210
Resistance	p. 211
Timesong	p. 211
ITMA	p. 212
In the Middle of the Wood	p. 213
The Belt	p. 213
Written in the Margin	p. 214
Severn aisling	p. 216
Message	p. 220
Index of First Lines	p. 221
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