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Orientation: Approaches to Place in Northern Irish Poetry ] 21
formative influences, with a tentative nod to its potential benefit, since “[t]he
Northern poet [... ] enjoys the advantage of being both Irish and British.”
The common experience of all the discussed poets is that of change, the
need for dialogue with the traditions involved in the approach to place, re¬
sulting in active negotiation with the respective tradition. Montague’s spatial
metaphor of the landscape as manuscript connects with the lore of place, yet
his admittance of the problem of accessing it due to the loss of the language
requires a different methodology of entering into contact with the heritage,
with the concurrent recognition of the limited understanding that it entails.°”
Heaney’s interest in local place names leads to a similar conclusion as the act
of deciphering them involves specific effort for tracing the changes the cur¬
rent forms of the names display, with a consequent reliance on the poet’s own
personal experience of the places they refer to. This is ultimately a necess¬
ary dialogue, one in which the personal precedes the learned and cultural,
communal element, producing an essentially hybrid experience. Heaney also
engages in a dialogue with the pastoral yet never fully gives in to its appeal
due to the effect of personal experience. Montague’s attempts to return to the
scene of his childhood also involve pastoral elements just to refute them due
to change both in terms of the actual location and the observing speaker’s
consciousness and experience. The two poets’ conclusion in this respect falls
in line with John Hewitt’s disillusioned statement in his poem “Postscript,
1984”: “the whole tarnished map is stained and torn, / not to be read as pas¬
toral again”, which ultimately suggests the inadequacy of the pastoral" to
provide an adequate frame of representation for the current situation of place,
especially in the context of Northern Ireland. Longley’s keen-eyed interest
in the natural world is indicative of some form of longing for permanence
and stability that derives from his distrust of human constructs, which also
testifies to an understanding of place as intricately related to time. Mahon’s
awareness of the importance of time, including specific momentary weather
conditions as reminders of a dimension beyond human control, as well as his
understanding of the effect of other locations on the assessment of particular
places indicate his approach to place as a highly complex one that reflects the
general changes to the concept of place observable through a broad range of
disciplines.
The poets addressed in the following essays are well-known and well-es¬
tablished literary artists from Northern Ireland. John Montague, Seamus
Heaney, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon all present aspects and facets of
poetry from Northern Ireland that emerge from that particular social and
cultural context that the province embodies, and while their poetries connect
in many ways with the broader Irish tradition, they are clearly marked by the
66 Brendan Kennelly, Journey into Joy. Selected Prose, (Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 1994), 61
8” cf. John Montague, Collected Poems (Loughcrew: The Gallery Press, 1995), 33
68 John Hewitt, Freehold and other poems (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 1986), 26
6° a detailed assessment of the pastoral is presented in the essays “Yet something mourns.’ Pastoral
elements in John Montague’s poetry” and “Heaney’s Glanmores - Almost Pastoral (?)”